The Adventures of Yukon Sully

Lake Tahoe's Existence Verified By Celluloid

2007-01-05T12:58:00.000-08:00

My mom has recently discovered text messaging in a big way. It now seems to be her preferred form of communication. Personally I don't text much, as I find it a bit cumbersome for anything more than two or three words, plus I don't get half the abbreviations people use (ROTFLOL). But she has taken to it like a fish to water. A couple of days ago I was in court at about 9 a.m. and received a text message from her telling me that Alabama had hired Nick Saban as head football coach. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining--I was glad to find out that particular scrap of information, plus it's a great "you know you're from Alabama when..." kind of story. But it also illustrates the fact that my mother has become a texting fiend as of late.

Case in point: This morning she sent me a text message to tell me that she'd just seen an ad for a movie about a bunch of hit men trying to kill some sort of lounge lizard (Jeremy Piven, pictured below) at a Tahoe Casino. As you would expect in real life, this requires assembling a couple dozen hit-men with wildly contrasting wacky personalities, complete with outlandish costumes and overly-elaborate methods of assassination. I instantly knew the movie she was talking about since I'd seen a preview for it myself a few weeks ago. It's called Smokin' Aces, and it looks like one of those super-slick action movies from the mid-90's when every up-and-coming filmmaker wanted to be Quentin Tarantino. Whether this film turns out to be the next Snatch or (God help us) the next 3000 Miles To Graceland remains to be seen. But the thing I thought was interesting was that both my mom and I (as well as all the whispering people in the theater I saw it with) had the same thought when we saw the preview: "Hey, that's Lake Tahoe!"

Unless you live in a big photogenic city that's constantly appearing in such venues--i.e. New York, San Francisco, L.A. or Chicago--there's always a strange, giddy thrill attached to seeing your hometown or region of the country featured on TV or, better yet, in a movie. Even if it's in a context designed to make a mockery of you. In this media-soaked age of celebrity as an end unto itself, being the backdrop to a movie is almost the highest honor a community can receive. It's like the gods of consumer entertainment descending from the heavens just to bestow their blessing on you, and to let you know that yes, you count, you are worthy of being exposed to the mass consciousness. This is very important because if it never happens, how can you really be sure you exist at all?

Farewell to the Jazz Cafe

2007-01-03T20:20:00.000-08:00

The weather today was unusually warm, more like May than January, and so I took a little more time than usual in strolling to court this afternoon. As I walked by the Artist Loft building, I noticed a small printed sign on the front door of EJ's Jazz Cafe. Apparently EJ's won't be with us much longer; the sign on the door said that the cafe is no more, and in it's place will soon be something called the Wild River Grille. The sign pointed me to this link, but apparently the website is still under construction.

I don't want to make this into the passing of an era or anything, but I always had a soft spot for EJ's. It was an eclectic environment, and one of the very few places in Reno that you could see live jazz and have something approximating real Cajun and Creole food. When I moved downtown in 2004 I used to hang out there pretty regularly since it was just a block or so up the Truckee river from the old Fortress of Solitude.

It's hard to get too nostalgic about it since it wasn't there very long and had more than it's share of problems. The place was so small that even a moderately sized crowd would make it difficult of find a seat, and although I liked the fact that they brought in some decent jazz bands (jazz is always much, much better live) the compact dimensions of the place made the music so abrasively loud that it was impossible to talk to anyone. Frankly, between the noise and the jostling of the crowd sometimes you felt like you might as well be at Brew Brothers.

Still, EJ's was one of those places that you had to appreciate the idea of, even if the execution wasn't always perfect. EJ's took a chance on downtown Reno back when that idea was still laughable, long before anyone thought of turning derelict casinos into stylish condos and the riverfront was still pretty much considered the exclusive domain of junkies and schizophrenics. I admire the owners for taking a chance on creating the sort of venue that most people would never expect to find in Reno and somehow making it work, at least for a while. I hope the new owners find success.

Happy New Year

2006-12-31T16:41:00.000-08:00

The thing that I've discovered about blogging in my year-plus of doing it is that it's a lot like working out. When you're doing it, it becomes a habit and it's easy to keep it going. When you take a few days off, you start to get used to being sedentary and it can be awfully hard to get back in the habit. Essentially it follows Newton's laws: Objects in motion (i.e. blogging) tend to remain in motion, while objects at rest (i.e. not blogging) tend to remain at rest. I'm not really big into New Year's Resolutions, but I'm going to try to start posting on a more regular basis in the coming weeks.

Scratch One Christmas Party

2006-12-17T20:07:00.000-08:00

Saturday evening Reno got it's first real snowfall of the season. As it so happened my boss was also hosting a Christmas party at his home in the south meadows that night, and Melissa and I had been invited to attend.

We set out from our home in the north valleys a little after four p.m., just as the sun was going down and the roads were starting to freeze over. Cars were sliding on Highway 395 like it was a skating rink and by the time we got to Parr Boulevard traffic had slowed to a crawl. Actually, the word "crawl" implies too much vigor. The sides of the road were littered with spun-out and stranded vehicles, and the flashing lights of police and tow trucks gave the gloaming an especially eerie look. It quickly became obvious--there was no way we were going to make it to the south meadows, much less home again at a much later hour when conditions might be even more hazardous. So we called my boss to let him know we couldn't make it, turned around and went home. We ended up spending the night cooking pasta and watching the snow fall onto our backyard.

Some good news: I am happy to report that our seven-month old Lab-Border Collie mix, Keela, absolutely loves the snow. This was her first real experience with the stuff, and after just a few seconds of confusion she took to it like a duck to water. When we got up this morning the sun had come out, and so we took the dog to one of her favorite places, the long open valley that stretches off into the Great Basin just to the east of our neighborhood. There's nothing up there but miles and miles of sage-covered mountains, peppered with the occasional stand of pinon pine. In the fresh snow the tracks of jackrabbits were visible everywhere, and our already hyperactive puppy was absolutely beside herself with excitement.

I have to admit that the clean air of the desert makes me pretty excited too, although I don't have the energy of an seven-month old puppy to express it with. Days like today make me realize what a rare and wonderful privilege it is to live in a place like this. People often ask me why I am so taken with the mountains and the open spaces of the West, and while it's the sort of thing that a person can (and that I probably will) spend a lifetime trying to put into words, I usually tell people that I love living in a place where the land is still bigger than the people. One day developers will no doubt clear the valley east of my neighborhood out to build yet more houses and more of the attendant residue of suburbia, but for today it is still raw desert, the way God intended it. For one day least, that fact made one man, one woman, and one little black dog very happy. Keela wasn't able to catch a jackrabbit today (and she probably never will--they're very wary and much too fast for her), but it's certainly nice to have space in which to chase them.

Virginia Open For Now

2006-12-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

It may have taken me a day or two to catch on, but I noticed yesterday that Virginia Street is now open again downtown. I don't have any inside info on this, but I suspect that this is sort of akin to shoving the dirty clothes under the bed when company comes over, because while portions of the newly refurbished road look great, parts of it also look like they need to be repaved. Enjoy it for now, because I expect the road to be shut down again as soon as the League of Cities leaves town.

Good On Ya, Brazil

2006-12-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year they became the first nation in America's weight class to become completely energy independent. While we spend precious blood and treasure fighting apparently endless wars over the oil-rich Middle East, Brazil, a third-world nation roughly the size of the continental U.S. and populated by close to 200 million people, meets all it's energy needs without importing a drop of oil. They can do this thanks in great part to the home grown and produced sugar cane ethanol powering millions of their vehicles. Why don't we do this in the U.S.? Sugar cane won't grow in Iowa, but that doesn't mean we don't have options. It's a more expensive process, but we could probably accomplish much the same thing in this country with corn ethanol and other renewable energy sources, and as a bonus it would be a great boon to long-suffering midwestern farmers. There are countless ways we, like our neighbors to the south, could work to throw off the yoke of foreign oil addiction. Or we can continue to sacrifice our security and the future health of the planet (not to mention billions of tax dollars and the lives of our military men and women) by remaining utterly dependant on foreign sources of energy for the foreseeable future.

But as if that weren't enough, today Brazil has made another bold move to preserve its Amazon Rainforest by placing a chunk the size of my home state of Alabama into protected status. I don't have all the details, but apparently parts of the new preserve would be open only to research, while other portions would allow for some closely managed logging and for sustainable use by local communities. This move won't stop deforestation in Brazil; that mostly goes on in the southern Amazon, which continues to be hacked up at an alarming rate despite the fact that "Saving the Rainforest" was something of a cause celebre a few years ago. But this is definitely a step in the right direction, plus it gives treehuggers like me a sense of optimism. Maybe one day we here in the first world will catch on that developing renewable, domestic energy sources and valuing environmental preservation are not only compatible concepts, they're both pretty good ideas.

Since we're on the subject of the Amazon and men who championed conservation, if you're looking for a great read check out The River of Doubt by Candice Millard. When one of our greatest Presidents, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, lost the 1912 election he took the defeat very personally and decided to deal with his depression by leading an expedition into an unexplored region of the Amazon jungle and down a previously uncharted river, the eponymous River of Doubt. They just don't make men like TR anymore--these days most guys deal with that innevitable mid-life sense of fading relevance by buying a sportscar and dating a much younger woman. Roosevelt chose to risk his life (and that of his son Kermit--yes, that really was his name) on a months-long trek through a region of South America that at the time was populated only by dangerous animals, semi-hostile Indian tribes, and ungodly numbers of bitings and stinging insects. The book is not only a fantastic adventure but it's also an excellent history lesson, telling the story of the expedition from the point of view of both American and Brazillian members and brining to life the early 20th Century, a time when the last blank spots on the map were finally filled in. In the modern era of GPS navigation and satellite communication there may not be any unexplored rivers left in the world, but as long as foreward thinking nations have the political will to do the right thing, then at least the Rainforest itself will survive to benefit future generations.

Embrace The Cold

2006-11-29T13:28:00.000-08:00

An early-season cold snap has gripped Reno for the last few days. High temperatures are only creeping up into the thirties this week, giving the end of November the feel of mid Winter rather than late Fall. Today is one of those crisp, dazzling days we get around here sometimes, with fresh snow on the mountains and nary a cloud in the sky. And cold. Very, very cold.

As in most cold-climate regions, complaining about the chilly weather is a common pass time in Reno from, say, November through March. When I arrived for work early this morning I must have overheard half a dozen conversations about how tired people are of this weather (even though the weather for most of this Autumn has been fantastic), how troublesome winter clothes are, how it's time to move to Yuma, etc., etc.

I understand the dislike that most people have for cold weather--we are, by nature, warm weather creatures and couldn't even live in colder climates without the intelligence to develop strategies that help us cope with harsh winter weather. That being said, I get more aggravated at the constant complaining about the cold than I do at the cold itself.

Reno is cold for much of the year (although not nearly as cold as, say, the upper Midwest or the northern Rockies). That's just a fact of life. I'm not saying you can't grumble a little on a chilly day now and then, but I am saying that at some point you either accept the circumstances for what they are, or you move and leave more room here in God's Country for the rest of us.

Personally, I like Winter. I like the way the pace of life slows down. I like hiking in the snow. I like having a beer and a bowl of chili at Timbers on Mount Rose after snowboarding all morning. I like a warm fire or an outdoor hot tub at the end of the day. Basically, I feel like you have two choices if you live around here; you either embrace the cold during the Wintertime, or you stay miserable until April. I choose the former. Trust me, it's a lot more fun than complaining for five straight months.

Oh, by the way, Melissa and I have decided that we're going to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. What can I say, even people who embrace the cold need a little variety now and then.

Breaking News That No One But Me Cares About

2006-11-27T08:31:00.000-08:00

I'm probably the only person in Reno today who really cares about this, but then again what am I going to do, talk about Nevada getting punked by Boise State?

Alabama will fire head football coach Mike Shula today. I suppose it was inevitable, but it's still disappointing when you consider that last year things seemed to be going so well. In 2005 a huge win against Florida (one that earned 'Bama the cover of Sports Illustrated and the inevitable curse that follows that distinction, thank you very much SI), a heart-stopping win against Tennessee, and an oh-so-close loss to LSU had me and a lot of other people thinking that the turbulence of the early '00's (side note: when are we going to decide what we're calling this decade? The aughts? The zeros? Anything is better than not knowing) with its NCAA sanctions and carousel of coaching changes was behind us.

The 2006 season dawned with a real sense of hope, and three straight wins over mediocre opponents propelled a cautious sense of optimism. Then came a painful double-overtime loss at Arkansas. Then Florida avenged last year's humiliating loss by beating 'Bama in Gainsville. Then Tennessee handed Alabama a close loss in Knoxville. Then Mississippi State (Mississippi State!) surprised the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Then another loss to LSU. Then, most painful of all, another loss to despised Auburn, the fifth in a row to the cow college across the state. With the exception of Miss. State, none of those game results were particularly surprising in and of themselves. But when you add it up the results for the 2006 season--barring a bowl game, for which the Tide is actually eligible--is a record of 6-6, with only two conference wins. That, coupled with disastrous records against Alabama's primary rivals during Shula's tenure (1-3 against Tennessee, 0-4 against LSU and the cow college) made today's announcement a virtual certainty.

Everyone liked Mike Shula personally, but making him the head coach at Alabama always did seem a little bit like giving a 16-year-old who just got his license the keys to a new Porsche. Instead of contending for National Championships, it seems clear now that the Tide has slipped into a morass of mediocrity. The past year has made it painfully obvious; the Tide today is a middle-of-the-pack SEC team, capable of beating the top tier schools, but usually doing so only when overlooked.

Like all Alabama fans, I'm sick to death of losing to our biggest rivals over and over while struggling to beat cellar-dwellers like Vanderbilt, but I also know that better days are coming. All the tools are there for someone who knows how to use them, and college football's great powerhouses rarely stay dormant for long. In the meantime, it's hard to be too broken up about football when you live in God's Country. Did you hear? The first big snowstorm of the season is moving through the area right now, dumping perhaps 18 inches of fresh powder up in the high country, and ski resorts all over the Tahoe area are opening up. Looks like it's going to be another great season here in paradise. When you get down to it watching college football is watching a bunch of 20-year-old guys you never met chasing a funny-shaped ball around a field. Snowboarding--now there's something to get excited about.

Goodbye To A Giant

2006-11-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

Everyone who loves movies suffered a loss yesterday. Robert Altman, one of the men who revolutionized American cinema in the boundary-pushing 1970's, died at the age of 81. Along with men like Scorsese, Coppola, DePalma, Spielberg and Lucas, he changed the way we thought about art, ourselves, and the world we live in.

Altman's best films, including his masterpiece Nashville and his best-known film M*A*S*H, were completed many years ago. But Altman always seemed to be working, always turning out something new. The Internet Movie Database lists 87 TV or movie projects that he directed going back to 1951, and he wrote or produced many more. Not every film he made was bold and daring, or even in some cases particularly good, but even late in his career he could still turn out a great one now and then, like 2001's Gosford Park.

I won't go into a long tribute here, but I do want to mention a scene that sticks out in my mind from what turned out to be his last movie, A Prairie Home Companion. Stop reading here if you don't want the ending spoiled. The film is based on the NPR radio program of the same name. Although the movie is ostensibly a tribute to Garrison Keillor's long-running variety show (a show I happen to like, although I admit it's an acquired taste), it's really a movie about loss and the wispy, ephemeral nature of all the things we cling to. Most of the story takes place during the fictional final broadcast of Keillor's weekly program. During the movie Virginia Madsen flits in and out as the Angel of Death, who we ultimately learn has come to claim one or possibly more of the movie's characters before the night is out. In the end the final show is completed and the program comes to an end so that a Texas corporation (subtle, eh?) can demolish the theater.

The last scene is particularly haunting. A year after the final broadcast a group of regular cast members is sitting around a table in a diner, reminiscing about the old days, enjoying each other's company and batting around the idea of trying to revive the show in a new form. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the Angel appears in the doorway. They see her but say nothing, and she stand quietly and looks at them for a few seconds, then silently walks toward the table as the screen goes dark. We are left to ponder which of the characters she had come for.

How fitting that this was the great director's last scene. Who exactly was the Angel of Death coming for? In the commentary track on the DVD Altman says he thinks (although he doesn't seem sure) that she's coming for Kevin Kline's detective Guy Noir. But now, upon further recollection, it is clear to me. Obviously, she was coming for everyone at that table. And Altman himself. And us. Like all great artists Altman ultimately didn't offer instructions or answers, only truth. He will be missed.

Que Lastima

2006-11-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many people saw this, but the distant Vegas suburb of Pahrump, Nevada passed an ordinance last week which not only made English the town's official language--a move that by itself reflects a disturbingly high level of paranoia--but also makes it illegal to fly a foreign nation's flag without also flying the flag of the United States. And the American flag must not be lower than the foreign flag or you can be fined and/or forced to do 30 hours of community service. I am totally not making this up. I can't find the actual statute itself online, but although it probably isn't directly stated in the language this is obviously a move by frightened people lashing out at the marchers who filled American streets with Mexican flags during large demonstrations a few months ago. From the Reuters news story about the new law:

Supporters said they passed the measure to hit back at Hispanic demonstrators who carried Mexican flags when they marched in U.S. cities earlier this year to press for rights for 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants living in the shadows.

"All of the illegal alien protesters are waving Mexican flags, and we just got tired of it," town board clerk Paul Willis told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"This is the United States, and the Stars and Stripes should fly supreme," he added.

Do I even have to point out how obviously Unconstitutional this is? No matter what you feel about the issue of what to do about this nation's broken immigration system (a complex question that I'm conflicted on myself), and no matter how intimidated you are at the thought of thousands of foreign-born men and women and children marching in the streets of this country and demanding some sort of recognition, any rational person must see that the authoritarian mindset that leads to laws like this is the complete antithesis of everything this great country stands for. Thankfully we have no such law up here in Northern Nevada, but even if we did I would still proudly fly my flag of the Republic of Ireland on St. Patrick's Day, and frankly I'd love to see some frightened, reactionary tin-pot dictator try to make me do otherwise. And if you think that somehow makes me less patriotic, you obviously don't understand the meaning of the word.

Man, Who Saw THAT Coming?

2006-11-21T11:11:00.000-08:00

After this week I don't think anyone's ever going to look at Kramer quite the same way again.

Perhaps we're giving Michael Richard's ugly, hateful meltdown (which everyone's probably seen by now so I won't directly link to it) more attention than it deserves, but like the Mel Gibson "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" rant, it's the sort of thing that makes you wonder: Just what kind of frightening, supposedly antiquated beliefs and attitudes still percolate just beneath the surface of our culture, a culture that some of us want to see grow more tolerant of our innate differences?

At least we can take consolation in the fact that after a little nervous laughter at the beginning of his tirade, the audience seemed to uniformally turn on Richards. Fifty years ago, a lot more people would have felt perfectly comfortable agreeing with him in public. Today, most people react with horror and revulsion. I guess that's some progress.

UPDATE: I've heard from a couple of sources now that an interesting theory is floating around. Apparently some people are starting to suspect that Richard's tirade, so obviously offensive and over the top, was probably an Andy Kaufman-esque stunt that achieved it's intended result, and that the real joke is on all of us for believing it was real. Proponents of this theory point to the historical oddity that Michael Richards was once involved on one of Andy Kaufman's great put-ons (or was it?!?!), the famous foiled-sketch brawl from the otherwise-forgotten TV show Fridays.

I don't give a lot of credence to this theory, clever though it may be. First of all, I don't think they could have planned the viral spread of the video. But more importantly, Andy Kaufman may have mocked wrestling fans, but I can't see him using the N-word in a context like this. Kaufman's fight with Jerry "The King" Lawler on Letterman may have shocked people at the time, but looking back on it now it seems pretty funny. What Richards said will never, ever seem funny.

I, Douche-bag

2006-11-20T13:38:00.000-08:00

I have to apologize for my behavior Saturday. I was on the wine walk but also trying to keep an eye on Alabama-Auburn (still a sore subject) and the big game of the day, Ohio State-Michigan, at every place we went into that had a TV. One of the guys I was doing the walk with was Tivo-ing the big game and everywhere from Silver Peak to Seven he was doing the fingers-in-the-ears, "don't tell me the score" dance. Funny and sort of sad as it was, it's just one of those unspoken Guy rules--you can taunt a friend who's Tivo-ing the game all you want, you can dance right up to the edge and fake as if you are right about to reveal the score, but if you actually give away the real outcome of the game, you are a complete douche-bag.

Well, to make a long story short, we were in the Sierra Tap House toward the end of the walk and some strange guy comes running in and says "who won the game?" Well, I had had a few wine samples at that point, but that's no excuse. Without thinking I blurted out "Ohio State by three." And from behind, in my blind spot, came up a loud, plaintive "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" There's no getting around it; in a moment of carelessness I had committed one of the worst offenses known to guys.

So my sincerest apologies, anonymous friend. I only hope that my cautionary tale can serve as an example to those who will come after me. And I'm sure I've got a big comeuppance coming from Karma.

This Time It's For More Than A Cheap Buzz

2006-11-16T07:25:00.000-08:00

If you're still looking for a way to help victims of the Mizpah fire, try this weekend's Wine Walk downtown. The monthly event is always a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but this weekend half the proceeds will go to benefit the people who lost so much in what is now the deadliest fire in Reno's history. If you've never done the Wine Walk before, it's easy; just show up at any of these places at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 18, pay your $15 (it's been a while since I've done it but I think that's still the price) and start walking around downtown Reno and sampling wine. As a bonus, the walk will end with the lighting of the City of Reno's truly gigantic Christmas tree next to the ice rink in the Virginia Street Plaza. So dress warmly and please come out, because this time it's for a really good cause.

Katy's Video

2006-11-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

Do me a favor if you have a few minutes. Click here. The link will take you to a short video about my little sister Katy and her quest to run in the 2008 Paralympics in Bejing. She's an inspiration.

Rummy, We Hardly Knew Ye

2006-11-09T06:32:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last couple of days getting over the double-whammy of a stomach virus and the breakup of Brit and K-Fed. I really thought those two kids were gonna make it. But life goes on I suppose. So here are a few thoughts on the recent national elections:

* Boy, was I pleased to have been wrong about the size of the Democratic "wave" that has now apparently take back both houses of Congress, along with a majority of governor's chairs and state legislatures. What a huge win (and don't buy that bogus "six year itch" excuse that the talking heads are jabbering about--Clinton actually gained house seats in his sixth year, and Reagan lost only a handful). I predicted that Dems would only win a narrow majority in the House and fall a couple seats short in the Senate. Although the reasons behind such a large Democratic victory are numerous, I think that above all I seriously underestimated the frustration that people are feeling over the Iraq war. So, apparently, did the Republicans.

* Can we please finally retire the notion that Karl Rove is some sort of super-human genius of unspeakable power? He's just a fairly smart political operative who's willing to sink to just about any level to see that his candidate wins. His strategy of dividing the country and playing primarily to the mega-church and talk-radio base (which, by the way, he didn't invent) worked a couple times, but motivating one half of the population by demonizing the other half is not a recipe for long-term success. Oh, and trying to turn the final week of the campaign into a referendum on a botched joke by John Kerry? Not so brilliant.

* Speaking of dividing the country, it's becoming apparent (to me, anyway) that the convenient shorthand of splitting the nation into a giant red middle sandwiched between two blue coastlines is losing whatever analytical value it may have ever had. Yes, the Northeast and sizeable portions of the West Coast are more apt to vote for Democrats, and the South and the Great Plains have a tendency to elect Cultural Conservatives. But I don't see either the Populist Midwest or the Libertarian Mountain West (and of course these categorizations are overly simplistic, too) as fitting neatly into the blue/red dynamic. Maybe it's time to move past such overbroad ways of classifying people and regions of the country.

* For the suddenly triumphant Democrats: Keep the proper perspective. Yes, when Bill Clinton was in office the Republican Congress wasted gobs of time and money investigating every paper clip that went missing from the White House. And yes, I think a primary motivation for those who voted you back into power was the desire to see some sort of oversight and (God forbid) accountability for this administration. But focusing on getting things done in the here-and-now will be the best way to distinguish yourself from the current House and Senate. Meaningful healthcare reform is probably too much to ask so long as Bush still wields the veto pen, but a step-up in the minimum wage would be a great move, as would some kind of immigration reform.

* Brit: Please, please give K-Fed another chance. If you kids can't make it, I don't know if there's hope for any of us.

You Can Help Mizpah Victims

2006-11-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

The death toll in the Mizpah fire has reached 11. Dozens are hurt or left homeless. Click here for some ways you can help.

Back In Reno

2006-11-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

I'm back from Pittsburgh. Congratulations to my cousin Claire and her new husband Joe. They had a gorgeous wedding.

The trip was one of those 48 hour in-and-out jobs that I'm so famous for in my family circles. It's unfortunate, but it's sort of the nature of the beast when you live on way out west and most of your family is back east. But at least my own fiancee Melissa finally got to meet the extended members of the giant Irish horde she's marrying in to.

One thing I can definitely say about Pittsburgh: Man, do they love their local football franchise. When we got off the plane and exited our concourse at the airport we were greeted by two lifesize, full-color statues of that were put there (I guess) to give the incoming visitor a sense of Pittsburgh's place in history. One statute was of a young George Washington, who as a young man distinguished himself just south of the site of the modern city at the Battle of the Monongahela during the French and Indian War. The other statute? Franco Harris, frozen in the act of making the Immaculate Reception. I sh** you not.

The other thing I'll say about the 'Burgh is that if anyone ever had the necessary capitol and wanted a sure-fire way make a lot of money on an investment, move to Pittsburgh and start a taxi service. The two notable cab companies in Pittsburgh appear to be completely incompetent. In the middle of the day on Saturday (Saturday! Not a busy weekday, mind you, but Saturday!) I called one of these cab companies only to be put on hold for about ten minutes, then told that they were too busy and I should call their competition. I called the competition, and was on hold for half an hour--this is not an exaggeration--before giving up. All I was trying to do was get from the Children's Museum, where Melissa and I were spending time with my niece, to our hotel which was barely a mile away. In the end, I was forced to call my dad and have him contact the hotel concierge, then get in a cab himself (for some reason they wouldn't do it if he didn't come along for the ride) and come get us. When I got back and complained to the hotel staff, I was told this is pretty much par for the course in Pittsburgh.

Oh well. It's still a pretty nice place, lousy cab service notwithstanding.

Off To The 'Burgh

2006-11-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

I'm headed to Pittsburgh this weekend to see my cousin Claire get married. I'll be back here in God's Country on Sunday.

So...who can actually name the three rivers?

Contrary To Popular Opinion, I DO Know Jack

2006-11-02T10:45:00.002-08:00

Or at least I met him. Okay, I shook his hand and told him my name as he handed me a flyer. But that's something, at least.

I'm not into name-dropping (nor could I be even if I wanted to, since I don't know very many people), but I got to meet Jack Carter, son of the former President, when he stopped by my office a few days ago. He's running for Senate against Republican John Ensign, and anyone who knows my political leanings knows I wish him well in that endeavor. If recent polling means anything then he probably won't be able to unseat Ensign, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless.

There was one thing that really struck me, though. As I came out into the lobby he was introducing himself to a co-worker of mine and he said "I'm Jack Carter, I'm running for Senate and I'M A DEMOCRAT!" He really strongly emphasized the "I'M A DEMOCRAT" part. Odd, I thought, to hear someone proclaiming that so proudly. In the past, people haven't been so exuberant in claiming that party affiliation. Right-wingers have managed to turn the word "Democrat" into something of a pejorative in much of the country, just as they have done with the word "Liberal." Many of them, even the President himself, usually won't even refer to the Democratic Party by it's proper name. Instead they call it "the Democrat Party", as though to allow even the common courtesy of the use of a proper name would somehow bestow on the Democratic Party a dignity it didn't deserve.

I could be reading too much in to Jack's bold declaration. I'm sure most Democratic candidates would, if asked, tell you that they are proud of their party affiliation even if they haven't always been overly enthusiastic in trumpeting it. But I wonder if what I heard from Jack Carter could be an indication of where things are going this year, if not in the Ensign-Carter race itself then perhaps in the country as a whole. I get the unmistakable feeling that for the first time in at least twelve years, this is not a good time to be a Republican running for office.

The Iraq war becomes more of an albatross around the necks of the ruling party every day. The Republican President's approval ratings continue to hover in the 30's, and the Republican-controlled congress is even less popular. And although Republicans and their media outlets endlessly gush about the economy, the fact is that record highs on Wall Street are not making people feel more secure: one recent poll found that a majority of likely voters in eight key states are "very" or "somewhat" worried about the direction of the economy, perhaps because despite all the alleged good news in recent weeks about a third of those in each state polled feels that they have "fallen behind" in their finances. I guess that knowing that the already-well-off are doing better than ever doesn't mean much to people struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.

Will this be a tidal wave year for the Democratic Party like 1994 was for Republicans? I doubt it. True, right now Democrats are a lot more popular than Republicans in a broad, national sense. But national mood is one thing, individual races something else entirely. Normally when people say "throw the bums out", they mean everyone else's bums, not their own bum who regularly brings home the pork. Over the years district gerrymandering and political polarization have made incumbents virtually unbeatable in most House districts. So even though the R's have left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths after six years of unchecked rule, there probably isn't going to be a rout this year as there might have been in years past.

My fearless prognostication is that Democrats will pick up the 15 seats necessary to take control of the lower chamber of Congress, but just barely. Even thought the political middle seems to have abandoned the GOP, there's always that hard-core 30 percent or so (that's just my own ham-fisted estimate, but I think it's pretty accurate) of the population that has become much too personally identified with pseudo-populist Conservatives--and in particular with GWB himself--to even consider other alternatives. These super culture-warriors are, in their own minds, always under siege (despite having controlled the federal government for the better part of a decade) and highly motivated. Their all-encompassing focus on wedge issues, along with the Republicans' legendary get-out-the-vote apparatus, will probably be enough to turn what in past years would be a complete House massacre into a mere narrow win for Dems.

The Senate is another matter. Here the Democrats need a net gain of six seats to take control. Chances look good in four states--Montana, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania--for Democrats to unseat Republicans, and other states in which Republicans once threatened to take seats from Dems--most notably New Jersey--now seem to be leaning more solidly Blue. That would mean that Democrats need to take two of three toss-up races in Tennessee, Virginia and Missouri. All three of those races are in statistical dead heats, but I've lived in the South most of my life, and knowing the region as well as I do I just don't see Virginia and Tennessee abandoning the GOP when the chips are down (even if Harold Ford Jr. is just to the right of Joe Lieberman). That would mean that Democrats will come up one or two Senators short of a complete take-back of Congress. Still, these results would make me very happy. It would mean the significant weakening of an administration that has encountered no real opposition over the last six years as they have weakened our civil liberties, run up record deficits, made a handful of people very rich while simultaneously helping drive up the numbers of poor and uninsured, continued squeezing out the middle class, and expended vast amounts of blood and treasure in a futile attempt at what they themselves used to deride as "nation-building." President Bush and his ideology would not be gone, but he would be the walking definition of a lame duck.

A lot can happen in five days, of course. If they've proven nothing else in the last ten or twenty years, it's that no one can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory quite like the Democratic Party. Plus, don't look for the avalanche of attack ads to let up any time soon; the Republicans have been playing that game since W's father won the 1988 Presidential election on an anti-Willie Horton/pro-Pledge of Allegiance platform, and they aren't about to stop drawing water from that well until it dries up. Never (mis)underestimate the power of fear and manipulation.

Still, for the first time in I honestly can't remember how long, I feel pretty positive going into an election. And if the Republicans do manage to keep control, hey, I'm a Cub fan; crushing defeat is nothing new to me.

So It's Come To This: I'm Ripping Off Bill Maher

2006-11-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

Last night was our first Halloween in our new house. Now that it's over with, I'd like to suggest a new rule for next year's Halloween: If you are over the age of eight, you must actually wear a costume if you're going to go trick-or-treating. Please don't show up at my house wearing blue jeans and a hoodie, holding out a pillowcase and expecting me to give you something. And putting on your Vans sweatshirt and saying you're "a skater" doesn't count.

And I hate to be a spoil-sport, but some of you (and you know who you are) have left me no choice. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to declare that if you have facial hair or are old enough to drive yourself from house to house, it's time for you to let trick-or-treating go, at least until you have kids of your own. By the time you hit high school, what you are doing isn't so much "trick-or-treating" as it is "panhandling". Anyway, this is time that you should be spending trying to get your hands on a believable fake I.D.

Fire at the Mizpah

2006-11-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

I found Lake Street closed to traffic and barricaded when I got to work this morning. Just up the block from my office the Mizpah Hotel, a building that dates to the 1920's, suffered tremendous damage in a late-night fire. Details are still sketchy, but six people were killed and about 30 injured. The hotel is (or was) a beautiful old red-brick residential hotel, serving as home to over 80 people. One person has been arrested and charged with murder and arson--it looks like the suspicion at this point is that the fire was intentionally set, although few details are available. It's feared the more victims might yet be discovered in a portion of the hotel where the roof collapsed. I'll have more information on this when I get it, but for more check out the RGJ's website, where they're doing regular updates.

Scorsese's Back Where He Belongs

2006-10-29T09:03:00.000-08:00

Went to see The Departed last night. Man, is that a fantastic movie. Easily Scorsese's best since GoodFellas, and it's surely not a coincidence that, like that 1990 masterpiece, this film is set on the mean streets that provide the director his greatest inspiration. If, as I've heard some argue, the praising of Scorsese as a genius of the gangster movie is a ghetto-izing of a great filmmaker, well, so be it. All I know is that Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are brilliant films that work in ways that decent-but-not-transcendent movies like The Aviator and Kundun do not.

The Departed is great for so many reasons. Jack Nicholson fantastic as a Boston crime boss, and for the first time in ages doesn't seem like a parody of himself. The cat-and-mouse interplay between law enforcement and the Irish Mob, each trying to uncover a mole within their ranks, is extremely compelling. The Boston atmosphere is so real that you can almost smell the Fenway Franks. There are great supporting roles from Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg (who's rapid fire, profanity-laced New England accent is by far the most spot-on in the film). Even Leonardo DeCaprio impressed me, and that's saying a lot since he usually makes me want to throw things at the screen. Plus, the soundtrack prominently features Dropkick Murphys, and there's nothing bad about that:

The movie will get a lot of award nominations, particularly for Jack (Jaaaack!), but it probably won't actually win much. First of all, it's not perfect; the Boston accents are a little shaky at times, and the film is probably about twenty minutes too long. Second, it's total lack of even a hint of feel-good sentimentality basically eliminates it from being a real threat to take Best Picture, since Oscar and most of the other major awards usually reward end up rewarding "pretty good but safe" over "artistically challenging work of genius." Forrest Gump will always win over Pulp Fiction, Crash will always beat Brokeback Mountain, and that's just the way it goes.

But if you're just interested in seeing maybe America's greatest living filmmaker at the top of his game, go see this movie. In the interests of balancing opinion, I will tell you that Melissa didn't think much of this movie (although keep in mind that her favorite movie is probably Center Stage), and my mom, who saw it separately back in Alabama last week, thought it was great but was turned off by the over-the-top violence. As for me, I'd say this is one of the best movie I've seen this year.

Happy Nevada Day

2006-10-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

Today is the official observance of Nevada Day, although the Day itself is October 31. Nevada Day is actually a pretty big deal in these parts. It commemorates the day in 1864 that Nevada was admitted to the Union as the 36th state despite the then-raging American Civil War. This is the reason our state flag has the words "Battle Born" on it. Most Nevadans believe that Nevada's statehood was pushed forward during the war in order to somehow safeguard Union access to Comstock Lode silver that was pouring out of Virginia City, just over the Virginia Range from Reno. This is not true; the Federal government would have had much better direct control over access to Comstock silver while Nevada was still part of a Federal territory. Statehood was really rushed through just prior to the elections of 1864 in order to help Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party keep control of Congress. But whatever the reason the important thing is that the Greatest of All The States is turning 142 years old this Tuesday.

Ruminations For A Wednesday (One Day Late)

2006-10-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

Wednesday is the second most vacuous day of the week, from a spiritual standpoint. It's not quite as vapid as the great empty nothingness that is Tuesday, but only because it's a little closer to the weekend and you can make lots of lame "hump-day" jokes, if you're so inclined (contrary to popular belief, Monday is not the worst day of the week--Monday is certainly not fun, but at least we get to enjoy the camaraderie of shared misery, that whole "it's Monday, it sucks, but we're all in this together" sort of esprit de corps).

The only thing that used to brighten Wednesdays up for me was the fact that that was the day that the new issue of The Onion was published online. I love The Onion, but ironically my favorite part was not the satirical news stories (they're great, but the best joke is almost always the headline itself) or the infografics or the always hilarious American Voices, but the only part of the entire website that isn't completely made up: The A.V. Club.

Recently this section of the website, which focuses exclusively on pop-culture stuff (movies, books, TV, music, video games--one of my favorite sub-sections is Commentary Tracks of the Damned, which dissects DVD commentary tracks made for terrible, terrible movies) has changed it's format. They've stopped publishing new issues on Wednesdays, and now new articles and features appear randomly during the week. This has jostled my Wednesday routine, but I'm not upset because they've also recently added some new features including a newswire, a club blog, and the best addition of all, Amelie Gillette's collection of "Pop Culture Love Letters" called The Hater.

I particularly loved this entry the other day, a list of Things That Still Exist But Shouldn't. Here's her list, with my comments in parentheses:

1. The Real World (My only request would be to throw in Survivor, too. And all those other "pretty people bitching about each other" reality shows that all sort of run together after a while)
2. News Items About Mike Tyson (I gotta admit, "Mike Tyson Still Crazy" doesn't really qualify as an earth-shattering news bulletin)
3. Tickle Me Elmo Hysteria (I can't comment on this--I'm only sort of vaguely aware of who/what Elmo is)
4. Judge Judy (Yes, yes, yes, sweet merciful God YEEEEES)

How much fun is a list of Things That Still Exist But Shouldn't? I can't resist ripping off the idea. So here is my own humble list of stuff that has long since outlived whatever entertainment value it may have once had:

1. TV Sitcoms. I know that Sitcoms, like snowboarding and Saturday Night Live, are declared "dead" by the supposed authorities on an annual basis. It's something of a cliche. But with the single exception of Sienfeld, there hasn't been a truly funny, original, and (here's the part that eliminates Arrested Development) successful sitcom on television in at least two decades. I exclude The Simpsons and other animated shows from the category of Sitcoms 1) because animation is by it's very nature a genre that allows for expansion and experimentation outside the parameters that define live-action entertainment, and 2) because it's my list and I say so.

2. Tom Leykis. I know he's got a million mouth-breather fans out there, but honestly, for how many more years is this guy going to do the exact same show every day? I don't care whether you like his gender-baiting schtick or not, if you've heard a half-hour of this show then you've pretty much heard the last ten years.

3. No-Frills DVDs. The bells and whistles are the WHOLE POINT of DVDs! Nothing is more aggravating to me than taking a DVD off the video store shelf, turning it over, and reading that the "Special Features" consist entirely of "theatrical trailer" and "subtitles in English and French". How can I possibly contain my excitement? The only reason No-Frills DVDs continue to exist is because the industry knows that after the money is made off the initial round of sales and rentals, fans of the movie will still buy the "Special Edition" DVD when it comes out in two years, as well as the "Director's Cut" two years after that, and then perhaps the "10th Anniversary Edition", if they can manage to play it out that far.

4. Boy Band Members. The music is bad enough. But then we end up having to follow these Tiger Beat turds down through the years as they progress through the various levels of celebrity decay (tabloid scandals, strange marriages, reality shows, etc.). Thanks a lot, VH-1.

5. MTV. It couldn't possibly have been this stupid back when I watched it in High School. Could it?

6. Saw-type horror movies. One or two new ones come out every month, and they always make a tidy sum on their opening weekend. And yet I don't know anyone who can legally buy a beer who goes to see them.

See how much fun this is? That's a good start to the list for now. I'll surely come back to this stolen idea in the near future.

Ice, Ice Baby

2006-10-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

For a while now I've been hearing rumors that despite the official word to the contrary the Rink on the River, Reno's downtown ice rink, would not be returning this year. Looking out the window of my office just now, it appears that these were nothing more than rumors because the ice rink equipment is being moved into the Virginia Street Plaza.

Speaking of the Plaza, I wasn't able to find out what, if anything, was decided at the city council meeting yesterday about the construction of a giant shade-canopy. The canopy was originally supposed to be part of the design of the Plaza but has apparently run into cost problems. If anyone knows how this was addressed yesterday, please let me know. It's going to pretty embarrassing if we have another sunny winter that constantly melts the outdoor rink.

UPDATE: Downtown Makeover reports that the issue was kicked down the curb to December.

World's Worst

2006-10-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

Keith Olbermann (who has been at the top of his game lately) bestowed upon Jim Gibbons, Republican Candidate for Governor of Nevada, the coveted title of Worst Person in the World today. In case you hadn't heard, a Las Vegas cocktail waitress told police last week that Gibbons assaulted and propositioned her in a parking garage. But according to Keith it is not these alleged inappropriate actions that win Mr. Gibbons his crown, but rather the disappointing "lesson" he says he has learned from the experience. To get the details see the video here. All I know is that right now Scandalmonger has to be the happiest person in this state.

Goodbye To The Sundowner

2006-10-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

I noticed coming back from lunch the other day that the "Sundowner" sign is coming down off the former casino of that name on Arlington Avenue. Obviously this is part of that building's gradual transformation into Belvedere Towers, one of at least a dozen major condo projects in various states of completion in downtown Reno right now. The essential website for information on downtown redevelopment, Downtown Makeover, has a great summary here. I remember this project being talked about approximately two years ago. D.M. says that while much work has been done, completion of the final phase is "estimated" at 2009. Of course, in Reno the phrase "estimated completion date" has a much looser definition than it does most other places when it comes to construction projects, so who knows.

Seeing the Sundowner sign coming down got me thinking. I don't live downtown anymore, and these days I'm sort of out of the loop on where development is heading. Obviously at least one major renovation--Riverwalk Tower, at the site of the former Comstock Casino--has been completed and several others--Palladio, Montage, etc.--are well underway. But there are definite signs that not everything is hunky-dory. Downtown Makeover has gone out on a limb and declared the massive Waterfront project "unofficially dead" until someone proves otherwise. A lot of people, like Myrna the Mynx (correct me if I'm wrong, Mynx), had hoped that this would be a sort of signature piece of architecture for Reno. Other large and small projects that are still in their developmental stages seem to be stuck in limbo, although hard hard facts are sometimes difficult to come by.

But beyond numbers, what I wonder is whether or not the momentum of a couple of years ago has been lost. In mid-2004, when I first bought the little condo that I nicknamed The Fortress of Solitude in (now it can be revealed) Arlington Tower, I could sense the energy and the general sense of optimism in and around downtown Reno. That's why I chose to live there, rather than in some stucco apartment complex. Downtown had at one time been the sort of place where decent people tended not to go, but I and a lot of other folks were convinced that it was about to be reborn as a hip urban center, a sort of miniature Soho in the Sierras. A lot of pieces, like the Wingfield Kayak Park, the Nevada Museum of Art and the refurbished Riverwalk, were already in place. And when derelict casino after derelict casino was bought up for conversion into condos, I felt even further vindicated in my belief, even though I wondered from the very start whether or not there was enough real demand to fill these thousands of proposed living spaces.

These days, I don't feel that same energy that I did two years ago. Maybe it's the fact that I'm out of touch since I no longer live there, but I suspect that a few factors may be leading to a loss of enthusiasm for downtown redevelopment. One factor is that most of the condo projects completed or underway downtown are shooting for a pretty high-end market, which would seem to me to price out a lot of the young single professionals or service industry workers who would be most interested in living downtown. Another factor is that while a lot of great local business have sprung up and in some cases begun to thrive in the redevelopment zone, larger retailers and restaurants have (with some notable exceptions) stayed away, probably for fear that the downtown area has neither the residential population nor the economic base to support them. And then there's the general Reno malaise that I run into so often whenever I talk enthusiastically about some project that I think is positive for the region: The response I tend to get most often is "it won't work--this is Reno."

I'm not the most informed person on the issue of downtown redevelopment, and if you can't tell I'm kind of fishing to be told that I'm wrong on this. Anyone who remembers what the river front was like just three or four years ago knows that the improvements have been tremendous. But I can't help but feel that if you'd asked me in May of 2004 where I thought we'd be by October 2006, I'd have thought that we'd be a lot further along. I would have assumed that by now there would be thousand more people living downtown. I would have thought for sure that we'd have a grocery store, a drug store, and many more thriving local and nationally-known retailers and service providers doing business with and hopefully providing good jobs for those new local residents. And I would have assumed that a great many more construction and redesign projects would be completed or near completion. Some of this has happened, but the process has been agonizingly slow and much remains to be done.

I so want downtown Reno to become the sort of place I still believe it has the potential to be. I just can't escape the sinking feeling that a lot of the momentum has been lost over the last few months. I hate sounding like such a pessimist. Somebody, anybody, please tell me I'm wrong on this.

Eureka

2006-10-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

Melissa is has lately been feeling the stress of trying to complete a Master's Degree in Journalism in a single year while planning our wedding at the same time. I myself was in something of a sour mood this morning, which isn't at all uncommon for me on a day after Alabama suffers a disappointing loss to a bitter rival. And the latest addition to our little family, Keela, was practically bouncing off the walls like a five-year-old child on a sugar rush. So I figured today would be a good day for us to escape to the mountains for a while.

That's how we found ourselves in Plumas-Eureka State Park this morning. "Plumas" (as I'm told it's called by locals) is barely an hour from the valley north of Reno where we live, and yet most Reno residents I know have never heard of it. This is both a shame and a blessing. The park sits inconspicuously just a few miles up from the retirement community/artist colony of Graeagle, just to the east of Eureka Peak. Gold was discovered here in 1851, and so while the park provides protection to a hidden corner of 6,700 acres of Sierra Nevada wilderness, including all the granite peaks and waterfalls and big piney forests that you would expect, it also protects the remains of the mining era, including the massive Plumas-Eureka Mill through which $8 million in gold is said to have moved. These buildings, which in their day were probably not much more than noisy, dirty industrial plants, have gained a sort of looming, mysterious presence as they have sat for many decades, rusting and unused, relics of a different era standing quietly alone in a great pine forest.

I'm surprised not only that so few people in Reno know of the existence of such a fantastic little mountain park so close by, but also that it's taken me over a year and a half to bring Melissa there. I am surprised because I (selfishly, delusionally) consider this wild region north of Truckee to be "my" little corner of the mountains. I can get away with this delusion because these deep forests and granite hills of the northern Sierra are often overlooked by outsiders, wedged as they are between the much more high-profile tourist attractions of Lake Tahoe to the south and the massive volcanic edifice of Mount Shasta to the north. These are the "undiscovered" Sierra Nevada, and that's just how I like them.

On a whim we decided to hike up to the old Jamison Mine, who's abandoned buildings and rusting equipment sit perched above a noisy creekbed. When we had left the house earlier in the day I had been concerned that the weather might be cold--it is late October after all, and we would be over 5000 feet in elevation--and so we had dressed in layers. But the temperature could not have been more comfortable, and soon our fleece jackets were stripped off and tied around our waists. Melissa and I sometimes joke about enjoying the Fall "Color" (as opposed to the plural "Fall Colors") here in the eastern Sierra, since the only trees in this climate whose leaves change color in the Fall are the aspens, which turn a uniform shade of brilliant yellow around the beginning of October. Certainly, the Sierra will never rival New England for extravagant displays of fall foliage, but Autumn in these mountains does have an unmistakable quality to it, very distinct from the rest of the year. The low-angle of the sunlight seems to make every detail stand out just a bit more than at other times.

Keela is half Labrador Retriever and half Border Collie, a water-loving hunting dog mixed with an athletic, highly-intelligent working dog bred to shepherd animals several times her size. At six months old she is a bundle of pure energy, and she was never going to be satisfied with the short hike up to the mine, and so we decided to push on towards Grass Lake and the Lakes Basin. Although I suspect she is only a little more than half grown she pulls powerfully against her leash, and this morning she practically jerked me up the steep ascent to the basin. When we crossed out of the park boundaries and into the Plumas National Forest I decided to let her off the leash, despite dire warnings posted about the presence of bear and mountain lion in these woods. Though I'm sure Caesar Milan would disapprove, there really is nothing like watching the unbridled joy of a puppy set free to explore the mountains.

The hike to Grass Lake from Plumas consists of a steep, rocky vertical ascent for about 3/4 of a mile, followed by a general leveling out of the trail over the last 1/2 mile or so until you reach the lake. You know you're getting close when you can hear the roar of Little Jamison Falls off to the right. Some years this waterfall would be little more than a trickle by late October, but this year we are lucky, and today the falls were roaring. Little Jamison Falls is a near-perfect example of what I love about the West. Back East such picturesque little waterfalls can be found occasionally, but they are usually well-known, boasted about by locals, pictured in postcards, visited by hundreds of people on a busy day, and are often the focal points of hiking trails or even of whole parks. But the West is still big enough that it can surprise you. In these mountains, such a wonder is not marked or advertised, and is not even on the main trail. It can be found off a short spur, churning away in obscurity, known only to a few locals and overshadowed by larger, more "impressive" waterfalls close-by. Although yesterday's weather couldn't have been better, when we unexpectedly stumbled across these 30-foot falls the entire viewing audience consisted of two human beings and one dog.

When we finally arrived at the lake, Keela could not contain her excitement. She charged through brush and water and dirt in tight, hyperactive circles of joy, with no purpose other than to fill her lungs with cool mountain air, stretch her young legs and take in every muddy, earthy sensation. Watching her, I knew exactly how she felt, although I don't have that kind of energy anymore (if I ever did). I was content just to sit still and breath it all in.

Grass Lake itself was having one of those serendipitous days when everything comes together just right--the weather was warm, the sky was clear, the surrounding mountains were reflected perfectly in the still water and the fall colors (yes, there was actually some red mixed in with the yellow aspens and the green cedar and pine) were the perfect accent. You just can't plan these sorts of moments. Sometimes you'll spend hours hiking to a lake like this in the cold or the rain, and when you get there the skies are gray and drizzly or snowy and the lake itself looks fetid and grim, and there's nothing you can say or do to convince your skeptical fiancee that spending the day this way is actually "fun."

And then there are days like today, days when the only frustration is the knowledge that the demands of the work-a-day world will soon force you back down the mountain and home again to face Monday. But the hike was amazing none the less. Driving back through Portola, with Keela passed out asleep in the back seat, Melissa (who isn't really in to this sort of thing and doesn't even own a pair of real hiking boots) actually said "You know, if we did hikes like that on a regular basis next year I think I'd really like it."

Music to my ears.

Bring The Pain

2006-10-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

I'm told that I'm going to have to have my wisdom teeth removed. I'm 33 years old. Somehow this doesn't seem right.

Some Guys Never Learn

2006-10-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

While much of the sports world is buzzing about Denny Green's blow-up after the NFL's Cardinals gave up a 20-point lead to the Bears in the second half last night, one bit of news that has flown under the radar screen caught my attention. Loudmouth former Miami Hurricane Lamar Thomas lost his job as a TV analyst today for making some strange comments on-air this past weekend. Thomas was working a game at which his alma mater's current team saw fit to engage in a brawl with cross-town Florida International, a much weaker opponent that they would eventually beat 35-0. As the fight raged, Thomas' rant included stuff like this:

"Now, that's what I'm talking about. You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don't come into the OB playing that stuff. You're across the ocean over there. You're across the city. You can't come over to our place talking noise like that. You'll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing."

Of course, this isn't the first time Thomas has let his mouth get him into trouble. For Alabama fans like me, the nice thing about hearing Lamar Thomas' name mentioned in the news is that it provides an excuse to re-live what I believe to be the second greatest moment in Alabama football history (behind only the 1979 goal line stand against Penn State, and just ahead of "The Kick" against Auburn in 1985). In 1993 Alabama was ranked second in the nation but wasn't given much of a chance against #1 Miami in the Sugar Bowl. Lamar Thomas, then a Hurricane wide receiver, spent the week or so leading up to the game talking about how the SEC wasn't what it used to be, how no one could guard Miami's recievers man-to-man, and how great it would be for him to win a third National Championship.

Then it came time to actually play the game. With Alabama somehow leading in the second half, Thomas was hit by Miami QB Gino Toretta (Fun Fact: for some bizarre reason Toretta actually won the Heisman Trophy that year and was then never heard from again) as he streaked down the sideline. He was on his was toward what appeared to be an easy touchdown and a chance for Miami to get back in the game. Then Alabama DB George Teague came into the picture. Re-live the memory for yourself:

Ironically, the whole play was then called back on an Alabama holding penalty, but had Thomas scored--or just held on to the ball--Miami would have refused the penalty and would have had a real shot at a comeback. As it was, Alabama won the game and their 12th National Championship, and George Teague's rundown has gone down as the greatest play that never officially happened in Alabama football history. Thanks for this trip down memory lane, Lamar.

One other sports note: My Cubbies hired Lou Piniella to manage the team today. Rumor has it that he's already pressuring the front office to bring in Alex Rodriguez, whom Piniella coached in Seattle. God knows I and all the residents of Cub-dom are pulling for you, Lou. But I've endured too many losing seasons to get my hopes up yet.

If You Must Blame Someone, Blame John Cusack

2006-10-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

My brother daniel went to college at a small liberal arts school in New Hampshire and his Major was, and I swear I am not making this up, "Great Books." He's since gone on to achieve success in finance (or maybe accounting--he's never really been able to explain to me what he does), but he obviously still loves books and often recommends particular titles to me.

His latest suggestion is Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which I picked up yesterday. Now, I know "Book Clubs" are sort of lame and never really work anyway unless they involve Oprah. I've tried getting quasi-literary discussions going on this site before and it's never worked. But perhaps this book is different. It's a collection of meditations on Pop Culture and it's written in that breezy, Douglas Coupland-like style that's so popular these days (see, for example, this blog) and is what publishers like to call "very accessible", i.e. not hard to understand. So if anyone out there wants to read and discuss this book in the comments section, I'm all ears.

So far I'm about six chapters in. I became familiar with Klosterman a couple of years ago when I heard a radio piece--on NPR, of all places--about a game of sorts he created called "Monkees = Monkees" in which, as this book also recounts, you try to figure out "which television show is the closest philosophical analogy to a specific rock 'n' roll band" based on "a combination of longevity, era, critical acclaim, commercial success, and--most important--the aesthetic soul of each artistic entry." So Molly Hatchet equates to Petticoat Junction, U2 is M*A*S*H (mostly because they both got insufferably preachy toward the end), etc. This is the milieu in which Klosterman works. His publisher says that "countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one does it quite like Chuck Klosterman." If that's true, the generation for which Klosterman speaks--which by coincidence would also be my generation--thinks about Pop Culture more than all other possible subjects put together.

So far this book is greatly entertaining. I particularly like the chapter in which Klosterman recounts his trip to a gig in rural Virginia with Paradise City, a struggling but apparently very content Guns N' Roses tribute band. Mocking these guys would be easy, but Klosterman is actually fascinated by them and the whole "tribute band" phenomenon. He notes, with a certain amount of glee, that Paradise City, a fake version of Guns N' Roses, actually got just as good a response as the REAL version of Dokken who played the same venue a week later. His genuine affection for these professional pretenders is obvious. "Paradise City may not always look like Guns N' Roses, but they certainly sound like them; when I go to the bathroom and hear music through a wooden door, it's impossible not to imagine that this is how it would have sounded to urinate on the Sunset Strip in 1986."

Klosterman's encyclopedic knowledge of Pop Culture will probably amaze you, even if it's bound to fly right past you at times. This is especially likely if you weren't a fan of whatever his subject is. I got next to nothing out his chapter on the pervasive influence on young Americans of the MTV reality show The Real World, because I've never seen an entire episode of the show and don't know any of the people he's referring too (I don't "get" reality TV and I never will). Still, it's an engaging book, and "very accessible." And I particularly like his idea that blame for the romantic disappointments and failures of pretty much everyone under the age of 38 can be laid at the feet of John Cusack, or more specifically on Lloyd Dobler, Cusack's character from Say Anything. Read the book and see if you agree.

Get On The Frackin' Bandwagon

2006-10-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

I've pimped this before, so I'll try not to go into a long fan-boy-esque diatribe here. But the television program that an awful lot of respected critics are calling The Best Show On Television is now back for it's third season, and despite the acclaim and a devoted, slightly obsessive fan base of the sort that often accompanies these "kinds" of shows, it's just not being watched by that many people. If you've one of the many who've never seen it before you should do yourself a favor and catch it this week. It's called Battlestar Galactica, and it's on a low-profile basic cable channel (the Sci-Fi Channel) on a day and time (Friday night at 9 p.m. here in Reno--check local listings) when most normal people are doing things instead of just sitting around watching TV. Oh, and did I mention it's called "Battlestar Galactica", a name that most adults would have a hard time saying outloud without smirking. Although it's enjoyed some ratings success in the low-expectations world of basic cable, it hasn't yet entered the public consciousness. This is a shame, because this show deserves to be a mainstream hit, not something condemned to cult status with the Stargates and Babylon 5s of the world.

If you're the sort of person who just can't get past the spaceships and the walking toasters and all the other trappings of science fiction, then there's probably nothing I can say to help you enjoy the show. But if you can keep even a slightly open mind, then please give it a shot. Galactica is one of the most complex, challenging, and rewarding television shows to come along in ages. It's not a show just for sci-fi geeks; there are no aliens with laughable foam-rubber heads, no endless series of habitable earth-like planets, no captain sitting in a chair and talking to people through a giant big-screen TV, no pat resolution at the end of every episode. It's a story about people dealing with difficult, sometimes catastrophic situations in ways human beings actually would, and it takes place in an incredibly imaginative environment. Simply put, it's just great TV.

One bit of warning--as I said in my post about Galactica last year, except for a few names and some basic plot elements this show is nothing like the campy late-70's show that inspired it. There is no cute kid (he disappeared mysteriously after the pilot episode), no robot dog, no Pa Cartwright from Bonanza. Calling the new version "bleak" doesn't do it justice. During last week's premier, when Starbuck graphically stabbed her Cylon captor through the head, I barely flinched. Oh, and don't worry, he didn't die, because see Cylons...well, it's complicated. Suffice it to say, family friendly it isn't.

I don't know if it's the Best Show On Television ("Lost" is probably still my favorite, but BSG is nipping at it's heels and will surely overtake it if they drag out this damn Kate-Jack-Sawyer love triangle nonsense much further), but if you want to see great TV then check it out this Friday night.

Some Perspective

2006-10-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer I wrote this post about a trip to a ranch in the Carson River Valley. The name of the man who owned the ranch I wrote about was Daniel. I don't know his age but I would have guessed it to be early 50's, and he had that healthy look of a man who doesn't mind working outdoors. I knew him through a co-worker of mine who was his significant other. She got us together because she knew that we shared a lot of common interests. Although I never got to know him well, Daniel was obviously a good man who had great love and respect for his land and for the people around him. He tried to convince me to volunteer for an organization that he worked for, an organization that helped low-income people and families build and own their own homes. I'm ashamed to say that I don't remember the name of the organization--although I promised him I would get around to volunteering my time, I always found excuses not to.

Today Ruby, Daniel's girlfriend, told me that Daniel had passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. Perhaps it wouldn't have made any difference to anyone in the long run, but tonight I find myself wishing more than anything that I hadn't been too busy to help out.

And Speaking of Baseball...

2006-10-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I published this post a couple of hours before reports of the apparent death of Yankees' pitcher Cory Lidle in a plane crash in New York. The crash also apparently killed three other people and damaged a NYC highrise. It was not my intention to make light of, or even refer to, his untimely death.

I meant to write about this a couple of days ago, but I got distracted. Still, I think it's timely enough.

Why is MLB the only professional sport in which teams celebrate by uncorking Champagne at every single level of advancement in the post-season? This used to sort of make sense in the old days, when each league would crown a pennant winner based entirely on who had the best record during the regular season, and those two league champs would meet in the World Series (which, for many years, was actually looked at by players and fans as sort of an afterthought to the Pennant races, kind of like the NFL's Pro Bowl is today). Then when the leagues each divided themselves up into two divisions, you could still sort of argue that being division champ was an accomplishment worth celebrating, even though it was just a lead-up to the League Championship Series.

But now it's gotten a little ridiculous. The other night I watched the St. Louis Cardinals celebrated their win in one-half of the NLDS (that's National League Division Series to those not in the know) by dousing each other with Champaign as though they had just won a championship. Only they didn't. They advanced from the first round of the playoffs to the second. Now that each league sends three division winners and one wild card team to the playoffs, winning your respective NLDS or ALDS is just another step along the way to a much larger goal. I'm not trying to single out the Cards here, though they are the hated nemesis of my beloved Cubbies. The Detroit Tigers did the exact same thing after beating the Yankees, and although I didn't get to see it firsthand, I'm sure the A's and Mets also followed suit in their respective series.

It is now a given in baseball that every team clinching the playoffs or winning even a best-of-five playoff series will celebrate as though they'd just won the whole thing. The stupidity of this seems obvious to me, but so far it seems I'm alone on this. Would you have expected the New England Patriots to celebrate with baths of bubbly after beating Jacksonville in the NFL playoffs last year? Of course not, that would be ludicrous--it was just a first-round win. But in baseball, by the time a team is crowned World Champs, they have enjoyed four separate Champaign baths--one each for making the playoffs, winning the Division Series, winning the League Championship Series, and finally the World Series. If you do the math, that's 15 separate exuberant celebrations on the way to crowning one (alright maybe two--the Pennant still means something to purists) real Champ.

I'm not trying to be a spoil-sport here. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't celebrate like you've won a Championship unless that's what you've actually done.

Why Does The U.S. Constitution Hate America?

2006-10-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

Take a look below at a great piece from MSNBC. Keith Olbermann, in his inimitable style, explains that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, passed by Congress and currently awaiting the President's signature (which probably won't come until after next month's election, natch), would, among many other things, do something that the U.S. Constitution forbids: Give the President the power to eliminate a prisoner's right to petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus at his whim. Habeas Corpus is what keeps the government from being able to throw you or me into jail arbitrarily. Keith's visual aid at the end of the piece using the Bill of Rights is perhaps a bit unsubtle, but maybe this is what it takes to get people's attention in an era that doesn't "do nuance."

C'mon all you self-styled Libertarians out there, all you guy's with "I love my country but I fear my government" bumper stickers. You should be fighting mad about this. This matters. Yes, the bill as written applies only to "aliens" (editor's note: not the Sigourney Weaver kind), and yes, in a couple of years it will probably be overturned by the Supreme Court, but that's immaterial--what this bill attempts to do is against the highest law in the land, and trite as it sounds, if they can do it in this case then there's nothing to prevent them from doing it again in the future, to anyone they deem an "enemy."

It may be that the Congress passed this bill, a bill whose supporters must know to be unconstitutional, simply as an election year ploy, a serpentine way to allow candidates to argue that their opponent wants "more rights for terrorists" instead of having to talk about their own association with an unpopular President and his unpopular war in Iraq. But this matters more than an election. This is about whether or not we value living in a free society. Its about what our founding principles actually mean to us.

Maybe there are people out there who don't care that this nation started an unnecessary war in Iraq that has now killed thousands and thousands of people (over half a million by one estimate) and has become the best recruiting tool a jihadist could ever have hoped for. Maybe there are people who don't care that thanks to Republican policies there has never been a better time in our history to be one of the super-rich, while at the same time more people than ever before live below the poverty line, real wages for working Americans haven't risen meaningfully in years, the number of Americans without health insurance is at 46.6 million and rising, and the middle class drowns in debt to pay outrageous costs of housing and higher education. Maybe there are people who don't care that the ruling party uses wedge issues and fear-mongering to divide our population and to paint those who dare speak out as some sort of America-hating Fifth Column. But dammit, everyone should care about this issue of Habeas Corpus! As long as we want to consider ourselves a nation of laws, our most fundamental rights must not be used as pawns in an election-year gambit.

Autumn in Northern Nevada

2006-10-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for Autumn, always have been. Today was one of those pitch-perfect Autumn days of the sort that we sometimes get here in Reno, when the temperature is moderate, the light comes in at just the right angle and there isn't a cloud in the sky. It makes you glad to be alive. I'm not trying to oversell it or anything, but if you're lucky enough to live in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada then you know what I'm talking about.

Today it was easy to make out the brilliant dash of fresh snow that now accents the upper reaches of Mount Rose. You have to love Winter at least a little bit if you're going to love living east of the Sierra, because Winter is never far away in this corner of the world. Up in the North Valleys we are already getting frost in the morning. In my yard the flowering plants have somehow chosen these last couple of weeks to put on their most extraordinary display of the year to date; right now the front of the house is a virtual riot of blues and purples and reds and pinks and all sorts of shades that we never saw through the heat of the Summer. When the afternoon sun has made the air warm enough, bees and other insects still buzz from bud to bud as if this were early July instead of early October. I almost feel like my little garden is dancing in defiance of the coming dark season, and I love it for that.

But I also love this landscape, and as I said loving this land means loving Winter. In the next month or two snow will cover the mountains, the hours of daylight will shrink into the single digits and the daily commute on ice-slicked roads will become an exercise in white-knuckle terror. But it will also be time to pull the snowboard out of mothballs, wax up the cross-country skis, and remember how fantastic a warm fire or a hottub can feel at the end of the day. Winter doesn't make itself easy to love the way Summer does, but he rewards are just as great if you're willing to work for them.

That's in the future, though. For now, we are having a fantastic Sierra Nevada Autumn. I'm planning to enjoy the flowers in my front yard for as long as they can hold out.

Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)

2006-10-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Leaving work today at 5 p.m. I was surprised to find that the streets were closed for a block in every direction from the intersection of 1st and Lake. The police were holding back traffic because some guy was dangling off the roof of the Cal-Neva's parking deck in what I guess was some sort of suicide stand-off. I didn't stick around to see how it ended and now I can't find any news accounts of the incident online. Does anyone in Reno know how this whole thing turned out?

UPDATE: It's now Friday morning and I still can't find any news about whatever was happening at the Cal-Neva garage yesterday, but my lovely journalist/fiancee tells me that this isn't unusual, that potential suicides rarely receive much media attention. In any case, I'm pretty sure nothing bad happened. Whoever that guy hanging off the railing seven stories up was, he didn't look like an investor who'd just lost everything in the stock market; he actually looked like someone who was either on something or perhaps just a bit "off" in the head. I'm sure everything came out okay in the end. Just another day in downtown Reno.

October is the Cruelest Month

2006-10-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

It's hard enough being a Cub fan without the whole world always piling on. Check out Fox Sports' latest post-season baseball commercial:

You know the saddest part? I own a jersey identical to the one the guy in the tree is wearing.

You Don't Say

2006-10-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

This article appeared in the RGJ today. It says that even despite the small drop in housing prices in the past couple of months, its very difficult if not impossible for middle-income earners to even consider buying a home in this market.

That thunderous sound you're hearing right now is everyone in Reno who earns under $100,000 a year and/or didn't just sell a house in California before moving here saying "DUUUUHHHHHHH!"

An Ass-Whipping In Vegas Stays In Vegas, But The Fremont Cannon Does Not

2006-10-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

I was over the hill in Napa this past weekend to see two of my friends get married (to each other, as luck would have it), so I wasn't able to get a reliable report on the annual Nevada-UNLV game until late last night even though the game took place in Vegas on Saturday. Turns out the Wolf Pack wiped the turf with their erstwhile rivals from down south by a score of 31-3. This means that the Fremont Cannon will stay blue for another year, and won't be subject to the sort of embarrassing treatment shown to it by the folks in Vegas back in 2000.

The game wasn't on TV and received almost zero press coverage outside the state of Nevada. This is a shame, considering how much the partisans here in Northern Nevada enjoy beating UNLV and would love the world to witness it happen. For some reason, people in Vegas revel in a sense of smug self-satisfaction when comparing themselves to those of us living in and around the Truckee Meadows. Somehow I wasn't surprised at last year's game here in Reno to hear the cheering section from Vegas chanting "Reno is white trash." Or consider this Open Letter to the Fremont Cannon, a little gem published in UNLV's student newspaper before this year's game:

I, like many other students at our fine university, won't feel complete without you among us and our non-mobile homes...My only hope is to christen you with a bottle of champagne once more; not a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon like the other team must have used.

What's hard for those of us who live up here in God's Country to stomach about this southern condescension is how unearned it feels. Sure, there are people in Reno who live in mobile homes and, although I can't think of anyone offhand, I'm sure someone in this city must like Pabst. But that's no different from any town in America, Vegas included. Yet we are forced to endure an overblown superiority complex from the city that considers these guys cultural icons, that made Elvis impersonation a fine art, and that has the world's highest per-capita concentration of creepy guys standing on street corners passing out flyers for call girls. Reno may not be Paris on the Truckee, but spare us the oh-so-sophisticated act, Vegas. You're still the city that's been defining bad taste ever since the Mob conjured you up out of the Mojave in the 1940's. Oh, and your football team sucks, too.

The Apocalypse: What's Up With That?

2006-09-28T20:35:00.001-07:00

Two works of fiction have come onto my radar screen in the last few days that have gotten me thinking about something that is, for some reason, the subject of nearly endless fascination to a lot of people: The End of the World.

The first of these works of fiction is the new book by one of my favorite writers, Cormac McCarthy. It's called The Road, and from what I can tell so far it's the novel that McCarthy has been hinting at for years in bleak, gore-laden books like his masterpiece Blood Meridian and last year's extremely dark No Country For Old Men, the latter being a book to which this new book could be considered a logical extension, even a sequel of sorts. The second work of fiction that's got me pondering End Times is the television show Jericho, which I caught the second episode of last night (God bless the man who invented the DVR). Such an apocalyptic pop-culture convergence got me thinking: people in this country sure do love themselves some Doomsday.

Both of these bits of popular entertainment--though I shutter just a bit to call a work by a lyrical genius like McCarthy "popular entertainment"--fit into the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction. Entries in this genre range from truly excellent (Nevil Shute's On The Beach was probably the first book to truly scare the living hell out of me) to just plain laughable (e.g. The Postman, a terrifically cornball Kevin Costner movie based on the not-much-better book of the same name). Although it is always with us to some extent, the popularity of this genre waxes and wanes over time: The 1950's and the 1980's seem to have been particularly productive periods, and we seem to be enjoying a resurgence yet again here in the early 21st century, with noteworthy additions to the canon like last year's Stephen King bestseller Cell and the wildly-popular Left Behind series, movies like Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds or the upcoming Apocalypto, and my personal favorite, the strange resurgence (resurrection, if you will) in recent years of zombie movies. And now we can add to that list Jericho and The Road.

All these works of fiction feature a cataclysmic event that causes a sudden, violent and utter end to the world as we (or the protagonists) know it. Usually this forces the survivors into, well, survival mode, stripping them of the fragile social structure that supports civilized society and forcing them to confront the most basic of human needs--finding food and shelter, utilizing what weapons are available, and fighting off bands of marauding punk rockers on motorcycles and/or jetskis. The nature of the cataclysmic event that brings our heroes to such dire straits varies widely; it can be anything from a plague to an alien invasion to an environmental calamity, but nuclear holocaust is a tried and true favorite, and atomic warfare is (or at least seems to be) the culprit in both Jericho and The Road.

McCarthy's novel is, as far as I've read it, an irredeemably bleak story of an unnamed father and son wandering the blasted, burned-out landscape of what was once the United States. The calamity that brought civilization to an end is (so far) only hinted at, but the results are truly horrifying; the only life-purpose left to father and son seem to be scrounging food, avoiding cannibals and trying to make their way south to a less hostile climate before the coming of winter. This is a long way from All The Pretty Horses. The only light of hope visible seems to be the unwavering love between ever-protective father and worshipful son. Other than that, the world dominated by barely-human predators that McCarthy envisions is as good as dead, perhaps better off dead.

Jericho is not nearly so unrelentingly terse, but it is certainly not without it's horrific elements. It is simultaneously an example of post-apocalyptic fiction and another widely popular television genre, the Lost rip-off. You know, tons of characters with secret, interconnected pasts, a serialized format featuring long story arcs, and an eerie, "what the hell is going on?" kind of atmosphere that invites obsessive fans to pour over and dissect every second for clues in the hope of solving the show's central mystery. (See also: Heroes, Kidnapped, The Nine.) The eponymous Jericho is a small town in Kansas who's residents witness the apparent destruction of Denver via a mushroom cloud seen over the mountains on the horizon--especially strange, since I had no idea there were mountains in Kansas. Communication is cut off, and the town is left to it's own devices for survival, as well as to figure out what has happened to the outside world--was it a terrorist attack? A war? An accident? No one knows yet.

I have to admit, I find this all very interesting and, yes, entertaining. Why can't we seem to get enough of these sorts of stories? What so fascinating about The End of the World? Why is that we are so eager to get our Apocalypse on, at least in terms of popular fiction?

I think that to some extent the answer to that question is partly rooted in the fact that surges of millennialism have washed over the American landscape ever since this country was founded. Americans are a more religious people than much of the rest of the industrialized world, and western religions have always featured a strong eschatological flavor. To be blunt, fire-and-brimstone types have always been with us, interpreting their favored prophecies to fit whatever crises and disasters and enemies currently exist in order to show that, without a shadow of a doubt, The End is obviously near. People who ponder the end of the world in terms of religious revelation almost always seem to do so with a maniacal glee. The fact that millions of people throughout history have spent thousands of years convinced that the end was imminently upon them and that all of these people have obviously thus far been wrong does not deter the enthusiasm one iota. In this sort of cultural environment it's no wonder our popular fiction reflects a fascination with The End. But that only explains part of the story, since most post-apocalyptic fiction is basically secular in flavor.

One could, I suppose, argue that a lot of this sort of fiction is really about the triumph of the indominable human spirit, that we like reassuring ourselves that despite cosmic indifference and our own suicidal tendencies as a species, when the chips are really down the will band together, soldier on, and somehow figure out how to repair a generator and shield ourselves from radiation despite the fact that in real life most of us don't know how to change a tire. That sort of thing might help explain the appeal of a show like Jericho, in which the townsfolk put aside old rivalries--so far, at least--and work together in a time of crisis. But how, then, to explain the unapologetically bleak appeal of something like The Road, a world in which outside the protagonist father and son there exists only bloodthirsty predators and hapless victims, a world in which the closest thing to hope is the vague notion that perhaps further south the winter might not kill?

Maybe it's simple morbid fascination, the same thing that forces us to slow down and stare at a car wreck despite ourselves. And maybe it's a vicarious way of dealing with our own mortality. But in the end, I believe that what these sorts of books and movies and shows are about is a catharsis. It's a chance to pull our deepest fears out of our subconscious and confront them, then put them safely away before calling out for pizza. I think something in us likes to be reminded that no matter what our fears--nuclear war, terrorism, environmental disaster, whatever--we're not there yet, and that as long as we know that a threat exists then there's a pretty decent chance we'll be able to do something about it. Preferably before it comes to fending off Lord Humungus with a flame thrower.

What I Did With My Summer Vacation

2006-09-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

The aspen groves in the mountains to the west have begun to turn a glorious Autumn yellow. Summer in the Sierra has come and gone, I have spent almost three months getting adjusted to a new home and a new lifestyle out here in the 'burbs. Time to bring the long national nightmare to an end. I think my self-imposed sabbatical has gone on long enough.

The world has moved on these past three months or so as it always does. My brother daniel (soccer sully as he styles himself) has gotten engaged to a beautiful woman named Rebecca and is moving to Atlanta. My God-daughter Avery, daughter of my sister Maureen, has turned one year old and her older sister Kira has turned four. My youngest sister Katy has begun a quest to compete in the Paralypics in Bejing in 2008, a subject I'll definitely be providing updates about in the near future. As for me, I'm adjusting to mortgage payments and commute times, doing what I can to help Melissa plan our wedding (June of 2007, in case you were wondering), and learning to take care of the newest addition to my little family, who's name is Keela--she's very cute, as you can see in the picture below. And at last, after almost three months, the old yearning to shout lunatic ravings at the world is on me once more. Somehow, I just feel like it's time to start writing about life in Reno again.

It seems both odd and reassuring to find the blog just where I left it, everything untouched like a box of Christmas decorations that's been in the attic since last winter. Obviously the site needs some updating; frankly, now that I look at it, it's pretty embarrassing that the poll question on the left is obviously left over from last Spring. Surely, it will take some time to get everything sorted out and clean out all the cobwebs. It might take me a while to get back in the swing of things. But it's definitely time to stretch the old muscles again and get back in the game.

Time To State The Obvious

2006-07-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

I just haven't had it in me to blog these last few weeks. Between being busier than usual at work, trying to put together a new house, and learning to organize life as a semi-long distance commuter, I just haven't had the mental energy necessary. Plus, I'm just a little burned out on the whole process.

I'm going to take a little sabbatical, I think. Where blogging used to feel like a catharsis, lately it has started to feel like an obligation, and frankly that's not how it should be. I've been doing this for over a year now--I guess it's time I take a break for a little while. Then hopefully I can come back with batteries recharged. I'm hoping to be back at it at full strength in no more than a few weeks.

Hot Times: Part Deux

2006-06-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

It seems my last post was more prescient that I knew. Yesterday afternoon fires exploded all over the Reno area. In addition to the one near Bordertown that is still making the air think and smoky in my neighborhood, fires sprung up near Lemmon Valley, in Palamino Valley and near Mound House east of Carson City. Fire even tore through the University of Nevada's Fire Science Academy. In all, about 50,000 acres are burning across Northern Nevada.

Hot Times In The Biggest Little City

2006-06-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were returning to Reno from Frenchman Lake when we ran smack into a grim reminder that Summer in the rural west doesn't just mean warm temperatures and getting burned by the high-altitude sun. It also means fire season.

In the mountains just to the east of Bordertown (the tiny casino that looks and feels more like a truck stop on Highway 395 just inside the California border) a forest fire that hadn't been there when we'd driven by just a couple hours previously had by that time (about 7 p.m.) burned what looked to be at least a couple hundred acres. Overnight the hilariously-named Balls Canyon fire tripled in size, and this morning our home valley was chocked with smoke and the thick smell of burning wood.

The scuttlebutt has it that this fire is early, but in my experience it's more or less right on time. Summer is here in force, and recent temperatures in the 90's have led to tinderbox-like conditions. When yesterday's weather brought storm clouds and lightning but no rain, the results were practically inevitable.

It doesn't look like the Balls Canyon Fire (God, twelve-year-old boys everywhere are rolling on the floor laughing at that name--it's almost as funny as the fact that the Washoe Grill used to be called The Glory Hole) is going to threaten any homes. But this may just be the beginning of a long, hot summer.

Judgment At Nuremburg

2006-06-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

Huzzah, huzzah, I finally have internet access at my new home.

And just in time, too; my wandering brother daniel has finally checked in with an on-the-scene report of the report of the U.S. Soccer team's disappointing loss to Ghana in the World Cup in Nuremburg, Germany. Enjoy.

Four more years...it is with a heavy heart that Soccer Sully is writing to you today. It's been a couple of days since I witnessed the final loss that would seal the United States' early exit from the World Cup. An injury to Cladio Reyna that lead directly to a goal and a phantom foul in the box by Oguchi Onyewu were all Ghana needed to advance. After Reyna's injury the U.S. couldn't muster much of an attack. Clint Dempsey's goal was one of only a handful of scoring chances that the team was able to generate with Reyna on the bench. Ghana was able to play defense and waste time by repeatedly requesting medical assistance from their trainers after fouls. Likewise, they constantly slowed the pace of the game by fouling the U.S. thirty two times, yet managed to avoid receiving any red cards from the official.

Despite the loss the World Cup experience lived up to the hype. I will certainly never forget the feeling of joy that I had just standing in the gate of the stadium. I was in disbelief that I was going to witness ninety minutes of World Cup soccer with my favorite team participating. The experience was even more exciting because the U.S. still had an opportunity to advance to the knock-out rounds if they could only manage a victory (since Italy won their game the U.S. only needed a victory to advance). The support of the U.S. fans was incredible. Most of the crowd was cheering for the U.S., though Ghana picked up some support from the German fans in attendance. Perhaps they were just happy to root for the under-dog. Seeing that game in person is a major accomplishment for me, a dream fulfilled.

Now we look forward with many questions left unanswered. Who will fill the voids left by retiring veterans such as Pope and Reyna? Will Landon Donovan be able to step-up his game and become a consistent presence on the field, not merely a series of brilliant flashes and periods of invisibility? And the biggest question, will Bruce 'Almighty' Arena return to coach the team to the next World Cup in South Africa? I guess we will have to wait and see; as the rest of the world continues to celebrate the Cup, American fans are left to wonder what might have been and what the future holds.

Editor's Note: daniel mentions the use of calling for medial assistance as a tactic by Ghana in this match. Lord knows, if all the effort spent trying to analyze and understand why Americans don't care about soccer were directed elsewhere we could probably have ended world hunger and cured cancer by now, but allow me to throw in my two cents.

I think the constant faking of injuries and the parade of players being taken away on stretchers--only to leap up miraculously unharmed as soon as being hurt is no longer advantageous--is one of the primary reasons people in this country don't take to futbol mundial. Sure, there's the occasional flop to draw a charge in basketball and a punter will often exaggerate his fall to draw a "roughing the kicker" penalty in real (i.e. American) football, but there's no other sport in which falling down and pretending to get hurt is so institutionalized and integral to the strategy of the game as it is in soccer, particularly on the international level. I think there's something that Americans find distasteful, guileful, even cowardly about the constant use of such a dishonest tactic.

Or maybe most of us just don't want to sit through another god-awful boring nil-nil tie.

Summer Solstice

2006-06-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

At this point, postings on this blog have become so infrequent that I imagine there's probably only four or five of you who still bother to check in regularly. To those stalwarts, happy first day of Summer. Of course, some argue (fairly persuasively, I might add) that today is not really the first day of Summer, but actually Summer's midpoint. But whatever you want to call it, today is the longest day of the year, and that fact always makes me happy.

There's something very real and life-affirming about today, but there's also something of the ephemeral nature of life in the Summer Solstice. From this point on the hours of daylight will grow shorter and shorter until they reach their nadir on the Winter Solstice six months from now. In a sense, Summer starts slipping away the very day it begins. All the more reason to get out and seize it while it's there.

This year, that's not going to be too easy for me with all the projects currently underway. The majority of the move to the 'burbs has been accomplished, but there's still much work to be done. The last week or so has been a blur of physical labor, cursing myself for having accumulated so much stuff, signing papers containing promises to pay obscene amounts of money, and arguing with service installers that ordering someone to be home between 8 a.m. and 12 noon on a weekday is a completely ludicrous thing to ask of a person who works for a living. The good news is, as of last Friday I am the owner of a beautiful 1/8 acre piece of heaven up in Reno's North Valleys. Unfortunately, this particular 1/8 acre piece of heaven is still currently without phone service (that kicks in later today), Internet (some time this week) or TV (the Dish Network guy comes on Saturday--right now all I get is Fox). Luckily, I have already discovered several fantastic dirt roads and tracks lacing the nearby hills, trails that make for fantastic mountain biking. Not a bad way to make use of all this daylight.

Family Photos

2006-06-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

My brother daniel, erstwhile soccer correspondent and hooligan-in-training, has checked in from Europe. I can't get more specific than "Europe" because he's sort of all over the place. Here's a shot of he and his girlfriend Rebecca at the Louvre:

And here he is on a train to Krakow, Poland:

Apparently he started his foray in London, but found it to be too expensive and moved on to Paris, Amsterdam and points east. I assume that at this point he's in Germany, but he's awfully hard to pin down. He did post a comment yesterday on a previous post on this site, but so far I haven't received a full dispatch on the World Cup. He's obviously having a great time and doing a lot of moving from place to place, but I'm hoping that when he has time he can sit down and write me a guest column as he's done in the past. daniel, when you get a chance, put down the beer stein, take a break from that "Ole!" song and channel your inner Hemingway!

And since we're on the subject of family photos, here's one I just got of my sister Maureen and her girls Kira and Avery in Atlanta:

No real reason to post this photo, it's just cute.

Judge Weller Recovering, Shooter Still At Large

2006-06-12T17:23:00.000-07:00

First off, thanks to all my family and friends who have called or e-mailed to check up on me. I'm fine and I'm grateful for your concern.

The better part of my day Monday was spent locked down in the Mills B. Lane Justice Center after a Family Court Judge on the other side of the complex was shot. Apparently he was shot through the window of his chambers overlooking the Truckee River. Right now he is reported as being in serious condition after taking at least one and possibly more shots to the chest, but reports do indicate that he is alert and talking to his family. His assistant also suffered superficial injuries but she's already been released from the hospital.

The shooting took place while I was working in the building (my office isn't in the Justice Center but my job takes me there quite often). Besides me, much of the court staff and a great many people who were just there to deal with traffic tickets or other mundane affairs found themselves spending a great deal more time in the Justice Center than we would have cared to when, at about 11:15 yesterday morning, we were told that no one would be allowed to leave the courthouse until police gave the all-clear. Trapped in courtrooms, at one point we were reduced to playing pictionary with markers and easles that are usually used to draw exhibits during testimony. Later one of the Judges who was stuck in the courtroom just like the rest of us pulled out a Trivial Pursuit game and we all played that for a while. Without exception people stayed calm and law enforcment acted professionally, at least as far as I could see. They finally let us leave around 4 p.m.

I don't practice in Family Court, and I can't say that I know Judge Weller beyond his being a vaguely familiar face in the hallway. But God knows that I'm wishing him all the best today. As for the shooter, he's still on the loose. The police are looking for a "person of interest" named Darren Mack, a rather prominent local businessman who's wife was found murdered yesterday. The two cases are almost surely related as Mack and his wife Charla were going through what is reported to be a nasty divorce and were scheduled to appear in front of Judge Weller for a hearing in September.

So what would motivate a person to commit an act like this, attempting to murder a judge? Like pretty much all judges and most legal professionals, Judge Weller obviously made a few people angry in his time. If you want to a peek into at the sort of anger and hostility that the Judge had aimed at him, page down the comment section of this posting, which started out back in January as a blog post that had nothing to do with Judge Weller but somehow got highjacked in the months that followed into a frenzy of rage, with post after post railing against the Judge. I don't know anything about the specifics behind any of the vitriolic tirades found at that and other sites, but I can tell you that because of the nature of their jobs it isn't at all uncommon for judges, prosecutors and other legal professionals in high-profile positions to amass a collection of stalkers, gadflys, self-appointed Nemeses and plain ol' nut jobs down through the years. And it doesn't help that in order to achieve their own small-minded ends certain political interests have found it expedient to whip up hysteria and anger against what they call "activist judges", creating a general attitude of hostility towards judges and the judicial system which I can personally vouch has become more pronounced of late.

Perhaps in an environment such as we have today this sort of thing is going to become more common, although I certainly hope not. Although I have the upmost respect and admiraton for the Marshals and Deputies who keep our courtrooms in Reno as safe as possible, the fact is that our Judges and other legal professionals put themselves at risk to serve the public, especially in light of the momentous, life-altering decisions that they must make on a daily basis and the highly-charged emotional atmosphere that they must preside over. This goes double for Family Court, where emotions are usually the most raw. Yesterday that reality hit home pretty hard for me and much of the rest of the Legal Community here in Reno.

Courtroom Shooting

2006-06-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

I just got out of a 5-hour lockdown in the new Mills B. Lane Justice Center. Things are still pretty chaotic in the wake of an apparent sniper shooting of one of our Family Court Judges. The latest information I have is that Judge Chuck Weller is in stable condition at Washoe Med. The latest information on CNN is here and the local angle from KRNV is here. I'll have much more to say on this soon, but for right now we're just trying to get things back in order around here.

Movin' To The 'Burbs

2006-06-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

It seems like forever since I've posted, even though it's only been about three days. It isn't that I haven't been writing anything--I've actually written two long posts in the last couple of days, one about the desperate pander that is the now-defeated gay marriage amendment and the other about the fact that this summer is the ten-year anniversary of my formative summer in Yellowstone. But when I went back and read them both, neither one really seemed that inspired. What can I say about the amendment/giant suck up to the Rapture Right that hasn't already been said? And as for Yellowstone, honestly, who wants to once again wade through paragraph after paragraph of me waxing poetic about pine trees? If you need more of that sort of thing, see the previous post.

Truth is, I've been too busy lately to really focus on blogging the way I'd like to. In addition to my job, which has been busier than usual of late, I've also been doing my best to help with planning our wedding (although as a man, my role in this seems to consist of doing my best to maintain supportiveness and forced cheer despite having no real understanding of what's going on--kind of like childbirth) and working with several other projects. But I've got one really big life-changing event coming up next week that's been monopolizing much of my time lately.

I wasn't going to say anything about this until it was a done deal--don't want to jinx it--but I might as well let the cat out of the bag. The inevitable has happened: I've sold the Fortress of Solitude. In anticipation of getting married and perhaps one day starting a family (BUT NOT YET! Don't have a heart attack, mom and dad) I'm buying a house in the North Valleys. I won't specify an actual address, or even a specific Valley, but here's what the new Fortress of Solitude (now not-so-solitary) looks like:

Cool Xeriscaping, huh? Yes, The Adventures of Yukon Sully is leaving downtown Reno, the place that has been the heart of the blog since it's inception. I'm pretty excited about this--I've never owned an actual house before--but not everyone sees this as a good move. When I told a friend of mine what I was doing, she shook her head and said "that's what always happens--people get married and then move to the 'burbs." Another friend was even more blunt when he told me "If you buy a mini-van, I'm kicking you in the balls."

Anyway, to whatever readership I have out there, please forgive my lack of attention lately. Real life has been intruding just a bit more than usual. Hopefully, when things settle down in the next few weeks we'll be back to the pithy tirades.

Vintage Nevada

2006-06-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Although it's posted with "No Trespassing" signs, Dave's small vineyard doesn't seem like the kind of place you would wander on to by accident. To get there from Reno-Sparks you head out on the Pyramid Highway, past the new housing developments in Sparks and Spanish Springs, and into the still sparsely-populated ranch and BLM land near the Paiute Indian Reservation. You turn right at the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Center, then drive up the Palomino Valley. He lives off of a steep, unnamed dirt road in the dry, mostly treeless Pah Rah range. From Reno the trip takes about half an hour.

The house is flush up against a small mountain, a mountain who's summit he actually owns. Going against all conventional wisdom he's trying to grow wine grapes in this dry, half-wild corner of the Great Basin. To my layman's eyes, at least, it looks like he might be succeeding.

Dave is one of those enterprising, extremely self-reliant guys that you find all over rural America, but in my experience they are much more common in the deserts and mountain ranges of the West than anywhere else. Originally from Virginia, He and his wife live in a small but beautiful home that they built with their own hands on forty acres that were empty when they arrived. They bought the land a few years ago for a price that would today be considered a pittance, and they could sell it now for a huge profit if they chose to do so. But they are determined to root themselves on this mountainside. In their minds, there's nowhere to move up to.

Their property is a monument to do-it-yourself independence. They graded their almost mile-long driveway themselves. They installed their own plumbing and electrical wiring. Their water comes from a wind-powered well. When the electric company told him that it would cost he and his neighbors tens of thousands of dollars to install six utility poles and bring electricity to them, he told them where they could stick those poles and put in solar panels for a fraction of the cost. In an age of office holders and clock-watchers, Dave is the kind of guy I admire most; one who just knows how to get things done.

Five years ago Dave got it into his mind that he wanted to grow wine grapes. This wasn't out of any devotion to wine; in fact, he's not even a wine drinker. He's much more into beer, as evidenced by the bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale he carries around with him as he works his small vineyard. No, his interest in grapes began when a friend from a wine-making family in California told him that he was retiring early by selling out to Robert Mondavi. This got him researching the feasibility of making wine in Nevada. He says that according to his research the soil is perfect here, and at least thus far the results have justified his efforts.

Making wine in Northern Nevada is bound to be a struggle. Although the University of Nevada has been working for years to develop a rootstock that could better withstand our treacherous climate (we had snow this past Memorial Day weekend, for God's sake) and some have theorized that parts of the state might one day prove to be very productive wine producing regions, most experts seem to be of the opinion that our unpredictable weather and vicious winds make growing high-quality wine grapes nearly impossible. Nevertheless, Dave is confident in his research and he believes that Northern Nevada's can produce good wine. When he heard through friends of friends that Melissa and I hoped to have a place like his ourselves one day, he invited us out to have a look at his operation and his methods. That's how we found ourselves driving up to the Palomino Valley this morning.

His tiny, two-acre vineyard is now in it's fifth year. In further defiance of conventional wisdom he's growing a number of varieties, everything from Reisling to Syrah, in an attempt to discover which one will give him the best results. So far the Syrah seems to be doing particularly well, but it will be many years before any firm conclusions can be drawn. But that's okay. "I got nothing but time", Dave says. Living in the desert will teach you that.

Just because we felt like helping out, Melissa and I worked in the sun and wind for a couple of hours today, pruning dead shoots and training up the more promising vines, and talked about the ingenious ways he overcomes barriers both natural and economic. For example, in the finest "waste nothing" tradition of the super self-reliant, Dave's trellising system utilizes dozens of used drive chains from electric garage door openers for support. His operation is completely organic ("I'm not into poisons") and thus comes under constant attack from all manner of wild creatures, particularly rodents. He's buried chicken wire around the vineyard two feet high and two feet deep, but still the little buggers get in sometimes. When I suggest that keeping a few cats might help with that problem, he tells me a story about a cat that he and his wife kept for a time that, one day out of nowhere, started crapping in the guest bedroom. "The litter box isn't even on that floor," he says with exasperation, "So f--- cats." Besides, in addition to the coyotes and the birds of prey, the vineyard falls inside the hunting territory of an old mountain lion that patrols this part of the Pah Rah, and so it's doubtful that an outdoor cat would last long out here.

Despite all the obstacles, the grapevines are green and thriving. Dave says he's gotten a good harvest every year for the last five years, and at this point 2006 looks to be no exception to the trend. When you ask him if he really believes that this high, windy corner of the world can become a genuine wine producing region, he looks at you with the assurity that only a man who has built his own house on a wild mountainside can muster and says "Oh yeah, absolutely." I'm still not completely convinced myself, but standing there in the middle of his growing fields I wasn't about to argue with him.

From the vineyard there's a spectacular view of the farms and ranches of the Palomino Valley and the forested Virginia Range to the east. Suburban development is slowly lurching this way, and the valley won't retain it's rural character much longer. Although all that exists below him right now are small farms and ranches, from his land Dave can point out where in the valley the master plan calls for schools, roads and the inevitable housing developments and retail outlets. But he seems to accept this the way he accepts freezing fog in the winter or relentless, high desert sun in the summer. Although he says he can't stand people ("but you guys are an exception", he assures us) and avoids going to town whenever possible, I get the sense that he knows in the end there isn't much that can be done to stop "progress"; I think that like the rest of us, he's just hoping that it's accomplished with at least a modicum of intelligence and foresight.

Driving home, I couldn't help staring out at the dry, empty brown hills along the Pyramid Highway and wondering what they might look like covered with well-tended vines instead of the suburban sprawl that will probably claim them first. I still remain skeptical that this region could become a wine-producer. After all, getting grape vines to grow isn't really the tricky part; it's growing good, high quality grapes that's the real challenge. But I can't think of anything that I would more love to be proved wrong about, and if it can be done I'm absolutely certain guys like Dave will figure out a way to do it.

Baseball's Return

2006-06-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

After an absence of several years, professional baseball returns to Reno tonight. It's not the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, as many of us have been hoping for years now, but it is still baseball and that's gotta count for something.

Tonight at Peccole Park the newly-minted Reno Silver Sox will begin play in the Golden Baseball League. The league bills itself as "Double-A equivalent", and all it's teams are independent of Major League affiliations. Independent league baseball can be fun, but you have to go in with the right expectations.

When I was in college in Mobile, Alabama in the mid-90's, an independent league called the Texas-Louisiana League started up a team called the Mobile BaySharks. It wasn't all that impressive an operation, as I recall from attending a few games in '94 and '95. Like the Silver Sox, the team had no Major League affiliation and played at a ballpark owned by the local state University. But it was baseball, and it was fun. Plus, it brought the national passtime back to a town that had somehow gone over two decades without professional baseball despite an incredibly rich history in the game (There's definitely something in the water in Mobile--for a small city it's the hometown of an incredible number of baseball legends including Hank Aaron, Ozzie Smith, Satchel Paige, and Willie McCovey, the Hall-of-Famer for whom the Giant's McCovey Cove is named; also Jimmy Buffett is from the Mobile Bay area, though that has nothing to do with baseball).

The BaySharks were a short-lived operation that folded after the 1995 season. But attendance had been great despite the team's terrible record, and in 1997 the Southern League, a real Double-A league with over a hundred years of history, relocated a team there. As a result the Mobile BayBears have been playing at Hank Aaron Stadium for almost a decade now.

Most of the co-workers that I have talked to say that professional sports can't succeed in Reno, that this isn't "that kind of city." They cite Reno's history of short-lived, failed sports franchises and argue that people come to Reno to gamble, not to see a baseball game or do anything else. I'll concede the point that Reno's history of supporting pro sports is pretty grim (although the original Silver Sox did survive here in one form or another from the 1940's until 1992), but that sort of history was also true of Mobile in 1994. A lot has changed in Reno in the last few years; although old ways of thinking die very, very hard, I truly believe that people here are finally starting to realize that this town doesn't have much of a future as a gambling-only destination, but that the potential is unlimited if Reno can recreate itself as a diverse, vibrant, well-rounded community. Like The University of Nevada's much-heralded basketball success, professional baseball could be a small but highly visible part of this community transforming itself from a national punch-line into the sort of place in which people dream about living and raising their families.

Tonight's game starts at 6:35, and the Sox will be playing the Long Beach Armada. I know I'll go to a few games this summer. Probably the level of play won't be world-class, and if the experience is anything like what I've seen from other independent leagues then the emphasis at times will probably be as much on dizzy bat races and Pat Sajak bobblehead dolls (they're giving those away on Saturday, by the way) than on the game itself. But as I said, it's baseball, and that's gotta count for something. And maybe, if we can finally prove that this city can support a pro sports team, we might be able to move up to where we belong.

Copa Mundial

2006-06-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

Like an airborne commando that missed his drop-site, my brother daniel has disappeared into continental Europe. I think he's somewhere in Germany, there with his girlfriend Rebecca to see something called the World Cup. The last communication I received from him was a text message about twenty-four hours ago, but since then all attempts to contact him have failed. I'm hoping to hear from him soon, and if it's not too much trouble I'm hoping he can provide us some on-the-scene coverage of this little soccer tournament of his. And some pictures, perhaps.

UPDATE: Reliable intelligence (i.e. my Mom) indicates that daniel is in London. Boy, he really did miss his drop-site.

Hey, Preppie!

2006-05-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

Things take a turn for the surreal when Mario/A.C. confronts the existential horror that is Showgirls, forcing him to face his inner demons. Aficionados will note the loving homage to Superman III, a.k.a. the one with Richard Pryor, in the latest installment of 28 Day Slater entitled "February 12: Crisis of Infinite Tartikoffs". Watch it here. Big props to Team Tiger Awesome.

Break-a-Heart

2006-05-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend. I spent my Memorial Day out at what used to be called the Break-a-Heart Ranch along the Carson River near Dayton, Nevada. I was there to help out the owner/boyfriend of a co-worker. The ranch is a pretty little place wedged in between BLM land for about four miles along the river. I spent the day walking the berms of the irrigation system, driving the threshing machine, and swallowing way more bugs than I honestly care to think about. My weekends are getting to be busier than my work-weeks, which is one reason for the definite fall-off in the number of blog postings lately.

Interesting place, the old Break-a-Heart. It got it's name decades ago, when it was a sort of dude ranch at which wealthy people stayed for six-week stints. Not coincidentally, six weeks was the (for the time extremely short) in-state residency period required for legal divorce in Nevada, back when the state was known more for quickie-divorces than legalized gambling. The old stone well at the ranch house is said by local lore to be the final resting place of wedding rings discarded there by the newly "Reno-vated". The same story is, of course, also told about the portion of the Truckee River that runs by the District Courthouse, and I doubt there's anything to either version. Still, it's a nice bit of local lore. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the well, or really any part of the ranch, but the only picture I thought to take was this one, a shot of one of the ranch dogs named Sampson.

I only thought to take this shot because Melissa loves Labs so much. And speaking of Melissa, she had a rather tough Memorial Day when she found out that two of her former colleagues at CBS News in London were killed in Iraq. Melissa was not close with cameraman Paul Douglas and sound tech James Brolan, but she knew and worked with them during her time at CBS's London bureau. I hope for the best for the families both men leave behind, as well as the families of all those men and women who have paid such a high price in this conflict. Whether we approve or disapprove of the decisions made which brought us to the point that we are at, I think that we can all agree that our hearts are always with those who sacrifice so much.

Just Wait

2006-05-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

I've lived a lot of places in my life, from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska to the colonial capital of Antigua in the Guatemalan highlands, and many places in between. And one thing has been a constant--everywhere I've lived, at least one person and usually many people have said to me "around here, if you don't like the weather, just wait ten mintues." Then they usually laugh at their own clever insight and stare at you in a way that says "know-whut-I-mean?"

You actually hear that expression a lot less in Reno than in other places, because the climate here is fairly predictable. But that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating at times. One of the tough parts about living at over 4000 feet on the east side of the Sierra is that winter is never far away. High temperatures in May are usually in the 70's, but ultimately there's nothing particularly remarkable about a day like yesterday, when a weather system blows in over the mountains and brings us clouds and wind and very cold temperatures. Yesterday I was driving through Dayton on the way back from the farm and it started snowing. Absolutely no one seemed surprised by this. Squaw Valley (which is still open for skiing through tomorrow) actually got five new inches of snow.

When this happens, there are always a few people who shake their heads and say something like "what's with this weather? It's crazy!" No, it's Northern Nevada. Today the sun is out and the skies are blue and by tomorrow the temperatures will be back up in the 70's, which is normal for this time of year. But it could snow again next month, or in July, or in August. That's just part of the deal here in God's Country.

Too Mondo-Longo

2006-05-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me say that Jonathan Nossiter's Wine Industry Documentary Mondovino is not a particularly good film. I rented it the other day, and to be honest it doesn't present its central themes or ideas in a very coherent way, plus it's probably forty-five minutes longer than it needs to be, and from a technical point of view even the camerawork is often confused and amateurish; some scenes zoom and spin about like the worst home movie you've ever seen. And I have no idea what to make of Nossiter's bizarre obsession with dogs, which appear in nearly every segment of the film for no discernible reason. All that being said, none of this means that the film doesn't give you something to think about.

As the title of the film would indicate, it's the story about the forces currently shaping the global wine industry. If you appreciate wine and all the complex things that it represents to so many people, and especially if you felt this way before Sideways, then this movie is definitely worth a rental. If not, well, you might still want to see it if you care about issues surrounding globalization.

At the heart of Mondovino is the notion that wine, like so many other things, is becoming homogenized all over the world. Despite the efforts of a few dedicated holdouts, most wine is moving toward a palatable level of standard mediocrity by the invisible forces of the globalized marketplace. In the case of the wine industry, this is being accomplished by a sort of unholy trinity comprised of (a) powerful producers who seem to care a good deal more about marketing than making wine, primarily represented in the film by Napa's famous Mondavi family; (b) wine critics like Robert Parker, who's inordinate influence upon both the industry and the consuming public is truly astounding and just a little frightening; and (c) wine consultants like Michel Rolland, who work hand-in-glove with (a) and (b) in steering traditional winemakers toward conformity in producing the types of wines that the critics tell the public they should like. This is all done for the sake of profitability and at the expense of individuality and a sense of terrior, which is a concept vital in traditional French winemaking.

The result of this globalizing process is not unique to wine, but it is particularly well-illustrated by that industry. Where once the international world of wine was one of diverse, individualistic growers and winemakers who were deeply rooted in their local regions and communities, now a New Order marches forward, emphasizing conformity for the sake of maximizing sales. This paradigm shift is perfectly encapsulated by an early scene in the film when consultant Rolland visits a wine producer in France. He insists that she employ micro-oxygenation in order to make the wine more marketable. And what is micro-oxygenation, the filmmaker asks the serene-looking wine producer after Rolland tells her she must use this technique? It instantly becomes clear that she has no idea, and Rolland obviously has no desire to explain it to her or to anyone else. He simply laughs the issue off, inferring that following his advice results in better sales; if it didn't, she would fire him. (The answer, in case anyone cares, is that micro-oxygenation is a process by which tiny oxygen bubbles are introduced into young wine, mimicking the natural aging process and allowing winemakers to produce wine quickly and profitably which artificially tastes as though it had been "properly" aged--purists debate how the process affects the quality of wine).

The result of all this is that wine, which has cultural connotations stretching back for millennia, becomes just another commodity to be mass-marketed. Industry giants buy up centuries-old vineyards to produce standard-issue wines, wines that critics tell the public they should think are great. Public tastes becomes standardized, and consultants make a living telling the few mavericks who still cling to quaint notions like terrior that they must conform or be left in the dust.

The effects of this global loss of identity and the sacrificing of any sense of individuality at the altar of consumerism are important issues to discuss. It's unfortunate that a film such as this, which makes a noble effort at addressing them, ends up being so confusingly presented and so darn long. Toward the end of the movie, just when you're thinking "geez, he's made his point, this movie could have ended twenty minutes ago" and then suddenly you realize he's now moving on to South America, at that moment you're pretty much ready to surrender to the forces of globalization just to be done with it.

Builder Needed

2006-05-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

For years now, every time I would drive south from Reno on highway 395 and pass through the Pleasant Valley area, I would look west toward the spot where some sort of gigantic road construction project was obviously going on, most notably the construction of a huge bridge over Galena Creek in the foothills of the Sierra, and I would wonder just what the hell was going on up there. Strangely enough, while almost everyone I know had seen and taken note of the enormous bridge being built, no one I ever asked about it seemed to have any idea what this huge project was or why a gigantic bridge was being built seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Today my questions are answered. First off, this bridge is apparently part of the I-580 Freeway project, underway since 2003. It's truly amazing that so few people know anything about this effort, which is designed to speed up the trip between Reno and Carson City by completely bypassing Pleasant Valley. This is a good and necessary idea, as it not only takes forever to drive through Pleasant Valley, but this residential stretch of 395 is infamous for killer traffic accidents.

Of course, since this is Reno the news today is all about delays and increased costs. Last week NDOT announced that it had terminated the contract with the bridge builder over safety concerns expressed by the builder (concerns for the safety of construction workers building the structure, not for the safety of whomever will someday use the bridge). Right now officials are scrambling to find a new builder. It's unknown how much this will drive up the costs of the $80 million project, or how long it will delay the scheduled 2009 completion date.

Oh well. At least I finally know what's going on out there.

In The Beginning

2006-05-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

If your looking for some interesting reading, check out what David Plotz is doing over at Slate.com. In a continuing series called "Blogging the Bible", Plotz is actually reading the book of Genesis, and as much of the rest of the Bible as he can get through, and writing down his thoughts and impressions as he goes. So far he's gotten to the death of Abraham in Chapter 25. I like the notion of what Plotz is doing very much; whether we think of the Bible as the inspired Word of God, or simply as a fascinating combination of literature, mythology, poetry, history, administrative code and propaganda (Disclosure: my own interpretations tend strongly toward the latter position, but I do my best to respect those who favor the former), it's amazing how few of us actually go back and read the thing. Plotz is no theologian and has no agenda; in fact, he claims no particular expertise of any kind. He is simply a man who is unfamiliar with the details of the Bible who has decided to read it and share his impressions.

Perhaps one of the reasons I find this to be an interesting project is because I myself did something similar a few years ago. Just sort of out of nowhere one day I decided to go back and read the book of Genesis. This wasn't out of any spiritual or religious inspiration, but was actually just the result of realizing that I couldn't remember actually reading the book from beginning to end.

Like Plotz, I was raised with religious instruction--Plotz attended Hebrew school as a child and went to a "rigorous Christian high school", while I attended Catholic schools for every year of education but one (freshman year of high school) from first grade through my graduation from Law School--and I thought that I knew what was in the Book of Genesis. I knew that it started with "In the beginning" and told the story of Adam and Eve getting cast out of the Garden of Eden, covered the strife between Cain and Abel, then probably finished up with Noah's Flood. If I'd ever thought about it (which I didn't), I guess I would have assumed that the stories about Abraham, Issac, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat and all the rest were found somewhere in those later books of the Old Testament who's names I can never remember.

When I actually sat down and read the Book of Genesis, I was surprised and confounded by many of the same things that are now apparently surprising and confounding Plotz as he covers the same territory. For one thing, there's a lot more to it than I remembered. The story moves across many generations, finishing up at the point where the Israelites are living favorably under Pharaoh in Egypt. The part that I and most other people are most familiar with, the Creation story, actually makes up a relatively short portion of the book.

Second, long stretches of it are extremely boring. Much of the book is taken up with excruciatingly detailed genealogies, lists of place names, descriptions of migrations, breezy recountings of battles and all sorts of other details that probably mattered a great deal at the time they were written, but whose relevance today is hard to fathom.

But much more than the size of the story covered by Genesis, what really surprised me was how sanitized were the Sunday School versions of these stories that I'd been taught as a child, and how much was simply left out because, I think, many of the details are rather disturbing and difficult to reconcile with modern sensibilities.

So many things were completely different from what I had been taught or thought I remembered. First of all, the story is confused and contradictory--for example, there are two separate and conflicting Creation stories in the very first two chapters! But more unsettling, the God who appears in Genesis seemed to me to be a lot more like an old-world god than the more benevolent, omniscient source of all compassion that we tend to think of today. In fact, in Genesis God comes across at times as mistake-prone, paranoid and even needlessly cruel. For example, God goes through the trouble of creating everyone and everything on earth only to destroy almost all of it with a flood, simply because mankind, whom He created just a few chapters ago, is apparently full of an unspecified "wickedness." You would think God would have had more foresight than that. But in any case He decides He must kill pretty much every person on earth, along with every other living except those few that are on the Ark. Then, after the flood waters have receded and Noah has made burnt offerings out of many of the animals he has just worked so hard to save, God decides that even though "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (i.e. the flood hasn't actually changed or accomplished anything besides a great deal of death and destruction), He will never again destroy the world in such a manner. It's as if He's figuring it out as he goes along. But in Genesis, God is always doing things like that.

I found the behavior of many of the human characters featured in the book equally surprising. There are lots of examples, but let's stick with Noah: In Chapter 9, the first thing Noah does after the whole flood episode is to plant a vineyard, then get drunk and pass out naked in his tent. Then the text tells us that his youngest son Ham "saw the nakedness of his father" and went to tell his older brothers. The older brothers cover their father up with cloth by walking in backwards so as to avoid seeing him in that state. Noah wakes up from his stupor and is furious once he finds out "what his younger son had done unto him" (side note: I can't help but get the feeling there's a subtext here I'm not catching on to) so he curses Ham and his descendants by making them slaves to his elder sons and their descendants. This Noah seems nothing like the nice, bearded old man in a bathrobe that I remember from childhood stories.

If you're as unfamiliar with the actual Book of Genesis as I was, you might be tempted to think that this is an isolated episode, somehow taken out of context. But it's not. If anything, it is fairly typical. Many of the heroes and heroines of Genesis actually come across as selfish and conniving, prone to jealousy and cruelty and disturbing episodes of violence. Trickery and deception and even murder are fairly commonplace, as are many other things we generally frown upon like taking slaves and practicing incest. Reading this I was shocked, and not quite sure what to make of it. After all, this is the first book of a collection of the most influential writings in the history of Western Civilization, and yet most of what I thought I knew about it turned out to be wildly different from what was actually written there.

Now I know there are people who have spent years studying these stories and coming up with ways to justify or explain away the parts that I found shocking, inexplicable, or downright bizarre, and I'm sure these people would love to lecture me about how I just don't understand, that it's all about context and the time in which it was written, or that somehow the words don't actually mean what they seem to say. That's all fine; I'm not a theologian or a historian and, unlike a lot of people, I don't insist that my way of reading these stories is the only acceptable one. And without a doubt, portions of the book not only provide excellent instruction, but are also quite beautiful (for example, understanding that to a certain extent you are your brother's keeper is the beginning of morality). But I would urge people to actually read Genesis or some other part of the Bible, and try to decide for themselves what to make of it. If you assume that "authorities" have always given you the whole story or presented the only reasonable interpretation, then like me you might be extremely surprised what you find there. I was utterly blown away, and I haven't really looked at religion in the same way since. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had this experience.

Looking For Enlightenment

2006-05-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

For some time now, I've been wondering to what use the large concrete plaza on the river between Virginia Street and Center Street (you know, where the Mapes Hotel used to be) is going to be put during the Summer, when it can't be used as an ice rink. Although it's nice to have a little more public space in a downtown area that is otherwise curiously bereft of public parks and open areas--the only other downtown park in Reno worth noting is Wingfield, and that one quite small--but the general public seems a little non-plused as to what exactly we are supposed to do with this large, empty expanse of concrete.

Well this morning at work I happened to glance out the window and see that one guy has found his own answer:

Yep, he's meditating. Honestly, it's the best use I've seen for this strange little park since the ice rink was taken down.

I know that plans have been bandied about for building permanent structures on the Center Street side of this lot to house restaurants and other businesses (I'm sure I heard somewhere that Tahoe's famous Gar Woods was going to open a new location there) and I've seen elaborate drawings depicting a planned cover for the little plaza, presumably to keep the ice rink from melting in the sun like it did all last winter. Does anyone know where these plans now stand?

It's Gonna Be A Long, Hot Summer

2006-05-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

The buzz these days is that we on the east side of the mountains might be in for a pretty horrific fire season this year--and more importantly, we might be in a pinch as to equipment and money to pay to fight the fires when they inevitably come. Two very wet winters in a row have given us lots of flammable cheatgrass and brush here in the valleys and foothills of Northern Nevada, and in the last couple of weeks temperatures have shot up to heights usually not seen until mid-summer. Yesterday afternoon thunderheads rolled in off the Sierra into the Truckee Meadows the way they usually do in July, giving up little rain but absolutely crackling with lightning bolts (most fires in the mountain west are started by lightning). If summer weather patterns really are here already, this summer might end up rivaling 1999, which was the last truly gigantic fire season this region suffered.

Fire is just one of those things you learn to deal with if you live in the West. Last year, although other parts of the state didn't get off so easily, we were very lucky in the Reno area as dire predictions of a rough summer didn't pan out and we had no major fires to speak of. It's probably too much to ask that we get so lucky two years in a row. Cycles of burning and regeneration have been at work here long before Western Civilization arrived less than 200 years ago and began to try to impose it's own version of Order on this dry landscape. In the end, all we can do is try to protect our property and our livelihoods and our loved ones as best we can with the resources we have. But I for one would feel a little better if we had a few more Chinook helicopters available.

Happy Birthday To Me

2006-05-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

I'm 33 years old today, the same age as Christ at the time of His crucifixion. Coincidence? Well, we'll see.

How great a fiancee is Melissa? Have a look the birthday present she got me.

It's a Raleigh Mojave 5.5, a hardtail mountain bike of the sort I've been wanting for ages. The Reno area has got gobs of bike lanes and mountain bike trails, but I also love the fact that I'm just in time for next Wednesday, which is Northern Nevada Bike To Work Day. Of course, since I live only about two blocks from my work it doesn't make much sense to take either a bike or a car, but it's the thought that counts.

Fire Update

2006-05-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of what Arlington Towers (which has a plural name even though I'm pretty sure there's only one actual Tower) looks like today, the day after one of the condos caught fire and burned. See if you can guess which one it was:

Although police and fire officials have given no explanation for what started the blaze, unofficial speculation is that the fire, which began out on the unit's balcony, was caused by a discarded cigarette casually tossed from one of the higher units. This is quite possible, as the weather has been unusually hot and dry for May, and no matter what the time of year I constantly find discarded cigarettes on the observation deck of the Fortress of Solitude. Since I don't smoke and no one else lives there (It's a Fortress of Solitude, don't you know) the only reasonable explanation is that some inconsiderate jerk or jerks who live above me would rather toss their garbage off their balconies than dispose of it properly.

Then again, that may be just what my arch-enemy Apocalyp-tor wants me to think.

Fire

2006-05-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

Obviously, one of my many arch-enemies (Death Man? Apocalyp-tor? Doctor Reich? The Crazy Screaming Preacher From Virginia Street? I haven't yet determined which of my Rogue's Gallery is responsible) attempted to destroy my Super-Secret Fortress of Solitude yesterday. Without revealing the exact location of the Fortress, I can assure a nervous public that the villainous plot was unsuccessful; my Fortress remains unaffected.

All joking aside, no one was injured in a fire that burned a condo quite near my own yesterday. It's a bit odd to look out a window at work and see smoke rising from a spot very near your home. Luckily Arlington Towers, where the fire occurred, is literally built like a fortress. Solid concrete floors and walls confined the fire to a single unfortunate unit. I feel terrible for whichever of my neighbors' property was destroyed yesterday, but thanks to good construction and a quick response from the fire department damage was kept to a minimum.

The McCarran Ranch

2006-05-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to spend the better part of this gorgeous day up at the McCarran Ranch, which is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy, a world-wide conservations group dedicated to, in their words, saving the last great places on earth. This is a goal that is also near and dear to my heart. Today the Conservancy hosted an open house at the 305-acre riverside ranch, allowing the general public to view the progress being made there in restoring that section of the Truckee to it's former natural glory. I drove out this morning to help in whatever way I could. Mostly this involved a lot of standing around and occasionally answering a few questions, but I'm happy to help in whatever way I'm needed.

The Conservancy is working to revitalize the stretch of the Truckee River that runs through the century-plus old ranch which lies about 15 miles east of Reno. In 1962 the Army Corps of Engineers, laboring under the notion that they were helping avoid floods and serving the interests of agriculture, straightened and widened the river. The result were devastating to the riparian forest and the animals that lived there, and if 1997 or this past New Year's Eve are any indication, flooding has not been prevented.

Today the damage is slowly but surely being undone, at least on this one tiny portion of the river. Natural wetlands are being restored, trees are being replanted, invasive species (like the despised Tall Whitetop) are being combated, and life as it once existed along the Truckee is returning. Recreated riffles in the river (made from rock removed to construct Reno's train trench) are helping to restore native plants, insects and fish. Specially designed rearing ponds are bringing back Western Pond Turtles and Leopard Frogs, as well as providing habitat for waterfowl, small mammals and at least one large rattlesnake that managed to make life interesting for a me for a few seconds this morning. And a large shade pavilion is under construction, which will one day accommodate large groups of visitors to this restored bit of high desert paradise.

Right now the McCarran Ranch isn't open to the public. Access problems--most notably a rather dicey railroad crossing--and a lack of facilities make the ranch an ecological work in progress, not a park. But soon that will change. In years to come the McCarran Ranch will be a treasured resource to the people of Northern Nevada, and a beautiful reminder of the power and beauty of nature. I'm happy to play whatever small role I can in making it happen.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

2006-05-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

The official opening of the Mills B. Lane Justice Center takes place today. It's a beautiful new building, and to commemorate the occasion local businesses and government agencies are putting on an event that includes local dignitaries, media, pomp and circumstance and, of course, free food. Unfortunately, someone (rumored to be at the D.A.'s office but I have no official confirmation on that) came up with the bright idea that gavel-shaped cookies should be available for the event. Apparently prisoners at the Washoe County Jail were ordered to bake hundreds of these gavel-shaped cookies. One of my co-workers just brought one back to the office. Here's what they came out looking like:

AWESOME! Sadly, what are now being called "the Dickie Cookies" have apparently been quickly pulled from public availability. We're wondering what to do with the one sample that we managed to capture before the, ahem, premature withdrawal. So far the best idea is to sell it on E-Bay, but if anyone has any better ideas I'd love to hear them.

Better Luck Against The Dodgers, Creep

2006-05-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

When you're a Cub fan you learn to take solace where you can. Sure, the wheels have basically come off on the '06 season as the Cubbies are 1-8 in their last nine games, now finding themselves 7 1/2 games back of surprising division leader Cincinnati, and it's not even the middle of May yet. We're well on our way to completing year 98 in the Century of Futility (TM). But last night did bring us one bright spot: Even though the Cubs lost to the Giants again, Barr-oid Bonds did not hit a home run in the series and did not tie Babe Ruth's career home run total. Thankfully, in years to come when highlight reels show Bonds tying the historic mark, the clip will not include a hapless Cub pitcher jerking his head around to watch yet another artificially-enhanced moonshot sailing into McCovey Cove. A small victory, yes, but you learn to take them where you can get them.

River Festival!

2006-05-11T06:42:00.000-07:00

It's here at last! I love the River Festival even though I myself probably could not paddle across a bathtub. It sounds like the weather will be perfect--clear skies and highs in the 80's--and the Truckee is extremely high right now thanks to a high snowpack and a quick warmup this Spring. If you're anywhere near the Reno area over the next four days, do yourself a favor and head down to Wingfield Park (click here for directions). Enjoy the sunshine, grab a beer at the new Sierra Tap Room, watch the competitions, even get involved in a clinic if you're feeling brave. Just be sure to give yourself plenty of time to park--the one thing that has not improved downtown in the last few years is the parking situation.

Overall the River Festival is second only to Artown on my list of favorite annual Reno events. Get out and enjoy it.

31%

2006-05-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of polls out this week show Fearless Leader now hovering just below the freezing mark, with a scant 31% approving of his job performance. While I can't deny that his long, slow slide in public opinion is pleasing to me, I'm also somewhat surprised by it. I didn't think his popularity could sink so low--I thought there was a solid 35% or so that had become so psychologically identified with him that they could never abandon him no matter what--nor did I think that if it did sink so low, it would remain so for a sustained period of time. Yet here we are.

The reasons for the disapproval are pretty obvious--Iraq drags on and on and on, gas prices are sky high (in fairness there isn't much in the short term that Bush could do about this, but having a Texas oil man running the country while gas prices reach unheard-of heights and oil corps. rake in record profits just plain doesn't look good), and it's hard to think of more than a handful of Republicans who haven't been investigated or appeared in a mugshot recently. Add the complex issue of immigration into the mix--one of the few issues where the Conservative base actually seems pretty far to the right of Bush, who used to think the growing Hispanic vote could be turned solidly Republican--and you have approval ratings on par with those "enjoyed" by Jimmy Carter or Richard Nixon at the lowest points of their terms in office.

Here's my prediction for the months leading up to November's elections: In addition to harping on whatever Culture War crisis-of-the-moment is brought to the fore (funny how that always happens around election time), many of the people who crowed and cackled the loudest just a few short months ago about Bush's razor-thin electoral victories and supposed mandate will suddenly discover that Bush isn't "really" a conservative and never was; in fact, there's some evidence that this is already happening. Though some diehards will probably always stick by him, I think you'll begin to hear this meme picked up more and more from candidates, low-level talking heads and echo-chamber types as Bush's lame duck status becomes more tangible. A few of them will even start to talk openly about how he "betrayed" conservatives with huge deficits and disastrous attempts at empire-building. In the end, this is really the only thing that conservatives can do. After all, who wants to be tied to such an albatross?

What kills me about the shift in rhetoric I'm predicting is that if it is adopted, it won't really be incorrect. This President HAS failed to reduce the size of government or veto a single spending measure, he HAS giddily partaken in "nation building", he HAS sacrificed individual liberties in order to pander to the most fervent and xenophobic elements of his base, all things Conservatives would, in theory, be against. I'll be happy to see the Right come to this realization (which I've been pointing out for years, btw), but that doesn't mean anybody gets a free pass. He's their man and no matter how hard they try they can't be allowed to run from him. Conservatives were happy to hitch their wagons to this man as he rose to power and brought them what they perceived to be victories, and I for one am not prepared to let them get away with "ahh, I just realized that I never really liked him that much" now that he's sinking like a stone.

'Dateline' Going To The Well Again

2006-05-10T11:00:00.001-07:00

Dateline NBC is probably going to give in soon and change it's name to "Perv Ambush", and will become a weekly parade of embarrassed internet creeps caught in the act of trying to arrange sex with 'tweens. Tonight they air the fifth installment of the much buzzed-about series "To Catch A Predator", in which men who think they are on their way to a sexual rendezvous with an underage girl or boy arranged on the internets are instead met with cameras, bright lights, flabbergasted reporter Chris Hansen and, in the last couple of installments, the local authorities.

Like just about everyone else, as I watch these shows I'm stunned not only at the sheer volume of men who seems to be cruising the nets who are willing to go to sometimes great lengths to exploit underage kids, but that apparently Dateline can do this as often as they want, wherever they want, and the results will be pretty much the same. There's no question that this is makes for sensational viewing, allowing us to have both the salaciousness of the whole thing and simultaneously feel superior as comeuppance comes to the bastards who are trolling for children. Not only is it arresting television, but I think it actually serves the public interest to tell the world what kind of dangers are lurking out there in the quasi-anonymous world of the internets, a pseudo-real realm where it can seem at times like absolutely anything goes.

But indulge me just a moment while I offer what may be an unpopular opinion. Isn't this whole thing sort of starting to feel like exploitation by Dateline? I mean, of course we all want children protected and we all despise sexual predators. Dateline did us a service by calling attention to the fact that there are a lot of these pervs out there, looking to victimize the naive and vulnerable. But at this point, isn't this whole thing becoming the electronic-media age equivalent of presenting us with mustache-twirling villains in black capes and top hats so that we can boo and hiss? I wish I could tell the show "Point well made fellows, but now it's starting to seem like you're just trying to exploit and repeat past success by continually going after the easiest target there is (I mean c'mon--who out there would ever be pro sexual predator?). Time to move on to other important matters, even thought they may not be slam-dunks like this is."

I'm cynical by nature, so I could be wrong on this. Maybe we need to be reminded on a regular basis how dangerous the world is. And no doubt someone will read this and think that I'm suggesting sympathy for the creeps that are getting caught, though nothing could be further from the truth. But frankly, this recycling of what is essentially the same show over and over, with it's repetitive, emotional and easy morality play is starting to remind me just a bit of the Two Minutes Hate. That makes me just a bit wary. Anyway, there's a fine line between exposing a genuine evil on the one hand and returing over and ever to an area of easy success on the other. Perhaps it's time to tackle more challenging and (dare I say?) controversial matters.

We're Number 2!

2006-05-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not referring to the fact that my softball team won second place in the 2006 Corporate Challenge tournament last Saturday (although we did, a fact to which my sore throwing arm and aching legs still attest). I'm talking about the state of Nevada. Proportionally we're the number 2 state in which you are most likely to have your identity stolen.

Battle Born!

I'm Somebody Now!

2006-05-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

This is very exciting. Check out this page from the "Buzz" section of the latest issue of Reno Magazine. Look toward the bottom left-hand corner of the page; that doofy looking guy holding a beer and sporting a gumby-ish hairdoo is none other than your humble author. Yes, that's right: Yukon Sully in the "Buzz" section of THE Reno Magazine! I feel just like Navin R. Johnson when the new phonebook arrived.

"Page 73--Johnson, Navin R.! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity--your name in print--that makes people. I'm in print! Things are going to start happening to me now."

Now all I need is a crazed stalker who hates cans. By the way, if you haven't gotten any of the film references in this posting, you obviously aren't watching enough TBS at 1:30 in the morning.

Happy Cinco De Mayo From The American Idiot

2006-05-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

I don't normally talk about work in this forum, but I'll make an exception for this.

A couple of months back I upgraded my cellphone to Motorola's popular Razr. For a couple of weeks I was fascinated with my new toy, doing thing I could never do before like taking pictures with it, making short videos and, of course, downloading ringtones.

Since buying the phone I've always been able to remember to turn it off prior to the start of court (in fact, the marshals usually make a request that everyone turn cellphones off just before the judge takes his seat). Today I somehow managed to forget, and wouldn't you know it, about a half hour into court Green Day's "American Idiot" comes blasting out of my pants pocket, loud enough to fill the room. Rather than haul the phone out and fumble with it for about ten seconds trying to turn it off, an action that would only allow everyone to hear that much more clearly what a moron I am, I reached into my pocket and clamped my hand over the phone's speaker in a virtual death grip. This succeeded in keeping the sound from escaping, but it also meant that I was forced to sit there quietly with a death grip on something in my front pants pocket for about a minute or so, long enough to be sure the answering service had picked up. Needless to say, this is not very dignified courtroom procedure. I think it might be time to change the ringtone.

Oh, and the worst part? It was a telemarketer.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

2006-05-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to wonder what the point of my e-mail filter is. I have it set to what is alleged to be the most discriminating standard, but all it actually seems to filter out are e-mails that are either blatantly pornographic or items from people that I actually do know but who simply don't write to me that often. This is not to suggest that I don't get much junk mail--I do, by the truckload. In fact, here's what's accumulated in my in-box (i.e. stuff that was not filtered out) since I went to bed last night about ten hours ago:

A "Special Promotion" offering life insurance in 10 minutes
An offer for Mother's Day flowers
A skin therapy ad
A request to take a survey about (I'm not kidding) chewing gum
Something about taking a course to become a para-legal
An ad that promises a free dinner from Olive Garden or Red Lobster
Yet another "personal" invitation from Donald Trump to enroll in Trump University
Another Mother's Day promotion
Something listed as "National Gas Survey"

Keep in mind these are all items my filter must have felt were not junk mail. In the same period of time, here's everything that actually was filtered out into the junk folder:

Another life insurance ad
Something from "ROLeXReplicas"
A note from one "Thomas" containing the subject line "SmallChicks Take BigDicks"

The only other thing that ended up in the junk folder was an e-mail from my real estate agent (not you, Diane; I got your very helpful e-mail before bed last night) containing vital information that I would definitely want to see but would have completely missed if I didn't check the filter every day for exactly this sort of thing. But then, having to do that kind of negates the whole point of a filter, doesn't it?

Two Items

2006-05-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

There are two items I want to discuss briefly.

First, Inc. Magazine has once again given Reno high honors, naming it the fifth best mid-sized market in which to do business in the US. While this is actually down from a year ago when we were number one on the same list, apparently the magazine did add 120 new markets to the mix. From the RGJ article about the ranking: "Reno-Sparks showed job growth in high-wage sectors like professional business services," said Joel Kotkin, author of the article in the May issue of Inc. Magazine. "I tell people that the difference in ranking No. 1 and No. 25 can be as small as 1,000 jobs. Overall, (Reno-Sparks) is a strong economy and a great place for business."

I always find these "hot towns" lists sort of suspect. Still, it's nice to be recognized.

As for the second item, please allow me to turn into a drooling fan-boy for just a moment: Was last night's episode of Lost not the most awesome thing you've ever seen? All I can say, in my best Comic Book Guy voice, is "BEST....EPISODE....EVER!" Or at least best final five minutes or so. Man, after being gone for what seems like ages Michael comes back looking a bit scruffy but not too bad off, and then suddenly he goes all Sopranos on us. First Ana-Lucia gets bumped off, seemingly out of nowhere, and then as if that weren't shocking enough Libby apparently meets an untimely end just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And why's Michael doing all this? Did he let fake Henry Gale escape? Why did he shoot himself? Is he being controlled by The Others somehow, or is this part of some desperate plan to get Walt back? Man, what a great and completely infuriating show. I can't believe millions more people would rather watch a glorified karaoke contest.

Of course, for a true obsessive the best part was catching the Hanso Foundation's fake commercial right before the end of the show. And if you're a fan of the show (God knows if you aren't you've stopped reading this post by now) you absolutely must see the fake Foundation's new website, apparently launched just the other day. And yes, I'm enough of a goober that I dialed the number given out on the commercial, but I'm not going to tell you what happens because I'm already sort of embarrassed at myself. I just have to say that one of the many great things about this show, and the reason why it was so obviously born to be a cult hit, is because it hints at a fictional universe that is amazingly complex and it rewards persistent delving into other media (particularly the internets) with tantalizing glimpses of further information, thus allowing for endless cycles of debate and conjecture. Does it all really mean anything in the end? Probably not. But it is a lot of fun, at least for drooling fan-boys like me.

Steal This Post

2006-05-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Another popular writer has fallen from grace amid strong evidence of plagiarism. This time it's Kaavya Viswanathan (try saying that five times fast), a 19-year-old Harvard student and author of a popular chick lit book called "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, And Got A Life". I can't say that I'd ever heard of the author or the book before this little scandal broke, but then I don't actually know what the definition of "chick lit" is, either.

The thing I always wonder about plagiarists is not why they do it (duh, because it's easier than coming up with stuff on your own) but why they always insist on lame half-denials. When faced with passages from their own work that are obviously copied, sometimes even word-for-word, from a previous source, they always offer the same basic lame excuse: I didn't do it on purpose. Every time a Jayson Blair or a Doris Kearns Goodwin gets caught copying someone else they always come up with some tortured explanation as to how it isn't really their fault. Usually this amounts to something along the lines of "although plagiarism did take place, it was all pretty much an accident." Viswanathan's ridiculous excuse is typical; while she admits that portions of her book are practically identical to portions of two prior novels by Megan McCafferty, she insists that the copying was "unintentional and unconscious", and that "I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words." Yeah, internalized them the way a guy robbing a liquor store internalizes a wad of $20 bills. I guess that's still better than the late Stephen Ambrose, who partially blamed his plagiarism on his children.

Just once I'd like to hear a plagiarist come out and say "Look, I read something that someone else had written that was beautiful and insightful, and since I couldn't come up with anything that was as good on my own I thought I would steal it. I figured chances were that no one would catch on, and that if anyone did they would probably figure it wasn't worth making a bid deal about it." If an author were to say this, at least they'd just be a thief, not a thief and a liar.

But for whatever reason, writers can never seem to bring themselves to fully admit their culpability. I suspect that it's because writers, like all artists, don't produce shoes or furniture or pork bellies or anything else of material, quantifiable value. Writers trade in revelation, in expressing the innermost fears and yearnings of the human soul. To admit that their words are not their own would be tantamount to admitting that they are not fully capable on their own of performing the single function that gives their professional life meaning. In other words, it would be tantamount to admitting that they are professional frauds. No wonder it's so hard for them to come clean.

She's A Keeper

2006-05-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

Is it boring and just a bit wussy to constantly talk about how great your fiancee is? Yes. But suck it up true believers, 'cause here I go again.

Not only is Melissa beautiful, she's pretty damn smart too. The corporation that owns the TV station whose nightly news she produces has awarded her an academic Fellowship, fully salaried no less. She'll spend the next year working towards a Master's Degree in Journalism with an emphasis on interactive environmental reporting. I don't really know what that means, but it sounds pretty awesome, and all of it will be on her employer's dime.

Just in case anyone cares, here's a shot taken this past weekend of us at the vineyard near Coloma where we're planning to get married in June '07.

Changing Seasons

2006-05-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

As sure as the turning of Aspen leaves in the Fall or the return of songbirds in the Springtime, another sign of the changing seasons has hit northern Nevada: Downtown Marketplace has switched to summer hours. This is huge for me, as I now once again have good microwaveable chicken wings available within walking distance until as late as 8 p.m.

Meanwhile, Back At Bayside

2006-05-01T01:03:00.000-07:00

Here's one for my fiancee and all the other Saved By The Bell fans out there: Check out Team Tiger Awesome's latest episode of "28 Day Slater," which premiered on New York's Channel 102 last week. And just in case you missed the original episode of this gripping series, you can see it here. Oh, and don't worry--I have it on good authority that more episodes of this series are in the works. Here's hoping that they find a way to make room for The New Class.

Nailed!

2006-04-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

How fantastic was Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner the other day? The only place I've been able to find the whole bit online is at Salon.com's Video Dog, but believe me it's worth sitting through their ads to see it. You can catch the first part of Stephen's bit here, and the concluding videotaped application for White House Press Secretary here (the application video starts to drag a bit and wanders into some very weird places, but if you stick around to the end be sure to notice frosty acknowledgement from the President and the First Lady towards Colbert as they beat a very quick exit).

Of course, most mainstream media reports focused on the preceding bit performed by the President as he stood next to a really dead-on doppleganger of himself (impersonator Steve Bridges) who offered an alternate version of what the President was "really" thinking as Bush addressed the crowd. Amusing, yes, but it was mostly toothless humor, poking fun at how the President don't always talk too good and other relatively "safe" subjects. Clearly, this sort of low-intensity, good-natured ribbing is what the MSM is much more comfortable with.

Not Colbert, though. I don't know how he managed to sneak under the radar, but boy did he. Perhaps someone at the White House actually thought his Bill O'Reilly-like right-wing shouting-head character from his TV show was for real. But however he did it, he took full advantage of the opening and got in a bunch of real stinging barbs. Never breaking character, Colbert took to the podium in full-on Bush Cultist mode and never let up. It was satire in it's purest form, not so much "ha ha" funny, but rather scathing and witty truth delivered in the guise of humor and perfectly designed to make powerful people very uncomfortable. Colbert drew a lot of knowing smirks from the crowd but generally not the uproarious laughter of, say, the more "acceptable" Steve Bridges' Bush imitation. No, Colbert's shots hit far too close to home both for the politicians and the press who were present, and watching the nervous laughter of most of those gathered was perhaps the most rewarding spectacle of all. Here are some of Colbert's gems:

"I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

"I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

"Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man (Bush) has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

"As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side. But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew."

About Rev. Jessie Jackson: "You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is."

Chiding the press corps: "Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"

As I mentioned, even though this dinner is well known to have general air of a Friar's Club roast, it was obvious from the muted reactions of the crowd to Colbert's performance that no one was expecting this level of uncomfortable truth to be spoken, especially in the actual vicinity of the President himself, a man who is well known to like to stay safely shielded behind yes-men and adoring pre-screened crowds of supporters. But in the end, the people who should have been most embarrassed by this unexpected metaphorical de-pantsing was not the Bush Administration, who's follies are well known to anyone paying attention (a number now up to about 68% of us according to the most recent information). No, the ones who should really be embarrassed are the press corps--they should be embarrassed that a comedian pretending to be Bill O'Reilly actually did a much better job of taking this government to task for it's obvious blunders and stupidities than they themselves have been able to do.

UPDATE: A new website has appeared that has the whole video. The site is apparently a Thank You to Steven Colbert.

A Year In The Life

2006-04-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

This is a noteworthy anniversary: Today The Adventures of Yukon Sully is one year old. David beat me to it the other day, but just for nostalgia and giggles here's my first posting from April 28, 2005 in it's entirety:

Okay, I give up. I'll become a blogger. I'll join the blogosphere. I'll be a blogger-riffic, blog-tacular blog boy. I'll do it now, before it becomes a legal requirement. I'll move back into my parent's basement, write in a hyper-casual style and turn snarkiness into an art form. I'll obsess about the minutiae of my daily existence in a manner that implies people should actually care about it. I'll harbor the deep, abiding conviction that publishing half-ass political commentary or pseudo-sophisticated movie reviews makes me smarter than everyone else. Worst of all, I'll harbor the deep, abiding conviction that someone, somewhere is actually reading what I write.

Welcome to the Adventures of Yukon Sully.

Oh, the memories.

Who Says We're Trashy?

2006-04-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

I caught this picture while walking back to work from lunch yesterday. It's the outside of the Club Cal-Neva, downtown Reno's classiest casino:

Sometimes it's hard to understand how Reno can possibly have such a sleazy reputation.

Still Kickin'

2006-04-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, it seems like forever since I've put up a posting, even though I guess it's only been about three days. Things are getting busier and busier and they're not likely to slow at least through the weekend.

First of all, my mom is in town from Alabama, my dad will be following tonight and Melissa's parents are getting here tomorrow from St. Louis. This will be the first time they've all met, which is nerve-wracking enough. Then Saturday we're all heading over the hill to view next year's wedding location. No actual date yet (although we're pretty sure it will be June 2007), but that may change soon.

On top of this, my job has been turned upside-down by the opening of Reno's new Mills B. Lane Justice Center and all the problems attendant to it. I usually make it a point not to talk about work in this forum in an attempt to maintain at least some level of anonymity and protect certain confidences, but I think it's safe to say that the opening of the new courthouse has caused some big changes for me this week. The result is that I haven't really had much spare time to sit in front of a computer and shoot pithy little tirades out into the blog-o-sphere. Of course, a cynical person might point out that I did have time to watch an hour of Lost last night even though it was just a clip show. But hey, you have to have priorities, right?

The bottom line is that a more regular pattern of posting should resume next week, once all the family members have headed home and things at work settle in just a bit. So we'll be back to the pithy stuff soon enough.

Spring Rain

2006-04-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

The first day of the season back at the farm was wet and short. I drove the hour and a half out to Silver Springs yesterday morning only to find that it was raining too hard to do needed soil preparation work. All I could do was rope off a few of the patches in back that will grow carrots, peas and peppers this year, get Ray and Virginia caught up on everything that's been going on in my life these past few months, and then saddle up for the long ride back to Reno.

We've had so much rain this Spring, it shouldn't be long before the desert east of Reno turns green as a golf course, just like it did after last year's wet Spring. All this does not bode so well for the farm, however; although rainfall is usually helpful, this current batch of storms has moved the schedule back considerably. It's going to be harder this summer for me to find free time for the farm, but the later the work gets pushed back the more intense it's going to be when the honest-to-god warm weather really arrives.

The Rocks of Kilimanjaro?

2006-04-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

I picked up a copy of Men's Journal the other day. If you haven't ever seen it, it's a glossy magazine that specializes in yuppie-flavored macho bluster in the form of hyper-consumerism, exercise tips and travel fantasies for the lycra-and-PowerBar set. So naturally I pick it up once in a while and enjoy reading it, even if it does have a surprising propensity for those annoying "Hot Places To Live" lists and vaguely homoerotic cover photos:

So I picked up the May issue the other day, and was disheartened to find an article on so-called "Endangered Places", i.e. legendary travel destinations that should be seen sooner rather than later because forces are now at work that will soon diminish their experience. These range from Hemingway's hilltop villa in Cuba (crumbling after years of tropical storms and plain ol' neglect) to the Maldives (an island chain in the Indian Ocean which may be mostly underwater by 2100). But the one that really bugged me was the entry relating to how warming temperatures are altering Mount Kilimanjaro.

Here's what the article had to say about the future of Africa's and one of the world's most iconic mountains:

Kili's rep as a "doable" summit is in doubt. Last January a rockslide above the Arrow Glacier base camp killed three Americans who were en route to the roof of Africa. The slide's cause remains unknown, but the 19,341-foot peak's fast-melting glacial cap may have had something to do with it. Mount Kilimanjaro is losing its signature white crown. Of the peak's original glaciers, first mapped in 1912, only 20 percent remain, and no new snow is accumulating up top. Global warming is the primary suspect behind the major meltdown, but deforestation at the base of the mountain may also be a factor. In short, the loss of Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" icon is far from metaphorical.

This has special significance to me because, strange as it may sound, my mom and I have talked for years about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro someday. I'll be honest, I don't know if it will ever happen; I've researched the project, and we're talking about $5,000 a piece just to get started. But there's something nice and encouraging about just knowing it's out there, if we could just somehow find a way to get to it. Now we may even lose that consolation.

Climate change and other environmental concerns have troubling implications for the ultimate future of humanity and billions of other living things with which we share this planet, but one of the effects that I find most personally heartbreaking is the fact that every day the world becomes a slightly less-interesting place. Kilimanjaro will still be there ten or a hundred years from now, but it won't be the same mountain Hemingway wrote about. The loss to the world won't be monetary, but it will be real all the same.

Bound To Happen

2006-04-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

Derrek Lee is out for up to three months. Why doesn't this sort of thing happen to Albert Pujols?

420

2006-04-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

I had one of those "man, I must be getting old" moments the other day, and it was especially appropriate since today is April 20, or 420 to all you stoners and aging hipsters (c'mon, just accept it) out there.

I was leaving Melissa's apartment complex yesterday. As I came down the stairs and started walking across the parking lot to where Grond was parked, I passed by a gaggle of college-age kids standing around and packed into the car nearest the curb. There must have been about eight or nine of them, all age 20-ish, some dressed in a half-hearted goth style, tightly knotted around a car meant to carry maybe five people.

Every single one of them eyed me very suspiciously as I approached. At first I wasn't sure why; as far as I could tell I didn't know any of them (although I'm pretty sure a couple of them are Melissa's neighbors) and so far as I could tell nothing about me appeared threatening. Then as I walked close by them, I realized the cause of their concern--although I never got closer then maybe 10 feet on the way to my car, the smell of burning cannabis washed over me, as potent as I've ever smelled it.

And that's when it hit me: They're looking at me with fear and paranoia because I'm THE MAN. Ten years ago no one would have glanced in my direction in this situation, but yesterday it was clear I was perceived as nothing but an old guy who might be a narc. And you want to know the worst part? It's perfectly appropriate. I don't even know if people say "narc" anymore.

Scotty, We Hardly Knew Ye

2006-04-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

The much anticipated staff shakeup continues in the White House. Scott McClellan is gone and Karl Rove's role is shifting in some vaguely-defined way. I'm sorry to see Scotty go; he was so bad, it was always entertaining. The deer-in-the-headlights look, the petulance, the flop sweat--all of it priceless. He was like a bad high school debater, always angrily refusing to give an inch even when caught in an obvious lie or contradiction. Ever the dynamic Decider-In-Chief, the President has already named his new press secretary.

Skunked Again

2006-04-17T22:17:00.000-07:00

Another year has come and gone, and once again I have failed to win a Pulitzer. I mean, I know those things are totally rigged and everything, but still I can't help but feel a little bit rejected. Don't get me wrong, it's not as bad as having People Magazine constantly thumbing it's nose at me by annually denying me the title of Sexiest Man Alive, but still, it stings a bit.

Future Assemblyman Looking For Input

2006-04-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

David Bobzien is looking for ideas on Reno's economic future. I know this is kind of dry stuff (not nearly as entertaining as, say, a video of a rampaging Easter Bunny), but if you live in Northern Nevada it's vitally important.

Click here to read David's latest piece. Spurred by the the news that Apple Computers move to incorporate an asset management company in Nevada, David wants to get a discussion going. It's easy to tick off the number of tech-centric and other well-known companies that now have a presence in Reno thanks to Nevada's business-friendly regulatory scheme (Microsoft, Intuit, Amazon and now Apple), but as Bobzien cites a local economic development official as stating, all we're really doing so far is picking off the low-hanging fruit. Microsoft may run it's software licensing out of Reno, but everyone knows that the real work and innovation of the company goes on in Redmond, Washington. Locating software licensing oversight in Nevada brings us a handful of good jobs, but it's only a small step in the right direction.

I don't have any brilliant answers as to how we spur the economic diversification that we so desperately need, but I do know that we cannot have a secure, thriving middle class and a culturally vibrant community unless we escape the 'one industry town' mentality. Whenever I talk to anyone I work with or know in town about things that I consider positive, anything from attracting 21st century industries to landing a Triple-A baseball team, the reaction is always the same; they look at me with a patient, patronizing look that most of us save for the mentally challenged and say "This is Reno. That's not going to work here. Why would they come here when they could go to a REAL city? Just be happy that we have a bowling stadium." This attitude is the first thing that's got to change.

If you have any ideas, please talk to David. I know he wants to hear from you.

Snowiest Easter In Years

2006-04-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

Despite this being mid-April, snow has fallen all day this Easter Sunday as the latest of a parade of storms lumbers over the mountains. People in Reno are starting to get a sort of crazy look in their eyes as winter just hangs on and on. Daylight now lasts very long into the evening and all of the flowering trees around town have blossomed, but the storms just keep coming and the snow just keeps falling. The forcast calls for one more day of snow tomorrow, and then a warmup that will supposedly bring us sunny skies and 70 degrees by Wednesday. Welcome to Northern Nevada.

That's One Bad Bunny

2006-04-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

I've always liked Easter. Maybe it's because it falls in Springtime, or maybe it's the fact that like a lot of holidays Easter is obviously a pagan festival dressed up as a Christian holiday. I mean really, eggs, flowers, rabbits--who are we kidding? Even the word "Easter" is indirectly derived from Eostre, who is believed to have been an Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess.

But I guess I really shouldn't say things like that. It might piss off the Easter Bunny, and that's not a good idea. If you don't believe me, just click here to check out a video my friend Tiffany sent me. I don't know if there's a War on Easter a la Fox News' War On Christmas, but if there is, that bunny is going to kick some serious ass.

Happy Easter.

Whitewater

2006-04-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

Walking home from work yesterday I got this picture on my phone at Wingfield Park, just across the street:

A sure sign that warm weather has returned to Reno is the crowding of the whitewater drops in the Truckee River Whitewater Park. There is a link in my links section that used to allow you to watch the city-sponsored webcam that was fixed on this particular drop, but now for some reason when you click on that link you're taken to a live shot of the under-construction Palladio. Personally I don't think watching a live shot of a hulking, empty building being constructed is more interesting than watching people do tricks in a kayak park, but I don't get to make these decisions.

"Red's" Wal

2006-04-12T16:21:00.001-07:00

The venerable Reno institution the Little Waldorf Saloon (known by anyone who has lived in Reno longer than five minutes as "the Little Wal" or just "the Wal") has been sold to new owners. I'm really, really hoping this isn't yet another case of someone attempting to fix something that ain't broke. The new owners, who also own Red's 395 Grill down in Carson City, are trying to calm a potentially hostile public by telling them that no one is going to take their beloved Wal away. But some of their quotes aren't making me too comfortable. From the RGJ story:

The company has already started renovating the property with a new wood-log facade and improvements to the bar's interior that includes hanging more of the historic photos and memorabilia that already decorate the walls.

I don't know about this. A wood-log fascade? Sounds too precious by half. It's not like they're converting an old IHOP or something, this is the Wal, Reno's legendary college bar. Everyone who went to the University of Nevada has a story about the Wal.

So already I've got my doubts, but then I read this:

The bar and restaurant will focus on a lunch crowd from surrounding businesses and the university, a mix of college students and an older crowd during happy hour, and college students past 9 p.m., Schloss (Director of Operations for new owners SES Nevada LLC) said.

Sounds frighteningly like they're going to turn it into an Applebee's. And the new name, "Red's Little Waldorf Saloon", doesn't inspire me with confidence either (although everyone's just going to continue calling it "the Wal", so I guess it doesn't really matter).

The Wal has changed onwers before and yet has survived in one form or another for eighty years, so I'll wait to reserve judgment until I see how extensive the changes are. I'm sure things will be fine in the end, but the new owners better watch their step. No one likes it when someone messes with an institution.

Extreme Makeover

2006-04-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

BIG hat-tip to Myrna the Mynx (how do you find time for 50 posts a day, Mynx?) for bringing to our attention Extreme Makeover: Downtown Edition, a website keeping track of all downtown Reno redevelopment projects, as well as a few area biggies outside the downtown area like the Sparks Marina and Grand Sierra (i.e. the Reno Hilton, or as Sugafree9 likes to call it, the MGM). I'm not sure how long this site has been around or how I managed to miss it up until now, but I'm glad I've caught on to it. Whomever designed this excellent site, he's apparently remaining anonymous except to reveal the fact that like me he lives downtown, and he's obviously pretty excited about what's currently taking place there. If you want to get caught up on all the redevelopment projects going on around town, this is without question the place to go.

In cruising the site, one thing I'm thrilled to discover is that something is finally going to be done this summer with downtown Reno's greatest eyesore (and that's saying a lot), the decrepit Kings Inn, which has been vacant and rotting for twenty years. Yes, you heard right, twenty years!!!! The plan is apparently to turn this...

into this....

It can't happen a moment too soon as far as I'm concerned, although I guess all the rats will have to find new places to live. But this sort of conversion is emblematic of what's going on all over downtown right now. It's not happening as fast as I had hoped it would, and I'm still not sold on the notion that there's really enough demand to fill all these new living spaces, but it is undeniably pretty exciting. If, as some firmly believe, downtown Reno is going to become home to thousands of new residents in the coming months and years, these new residents will find websites like Extreme Makeover to be invaluable resources.

Soccer Update

2006-04-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

My kid brother daniel (now calling himself "Soccer Sully"--man, the kid likes giving himself nicknames) has sent me another soccer commentary. Since he has agreed to be my Best Man, I guess he deserves his say. The following is presented without editorial input from me, so I wash my hands of all responsibility for it. We'll get back to talking about interesting things tomorrow.

That’s right, it’s time for “Soccer Sully” to highjack Yukon Sully’s blog once again to quench the reader’s thirst for news of the approaching World Cup. Anticipation is warming to a fever pitch as the calendar draws ever closer to the summer months and the June, 6 opening match between host Nation Germany and CONCACAF representative Costa Rica. The United States National team continues it’s preparation with a series of friendly matches that will be played on home soil. In the first game in this series the U.S. will face the Regge Boyz of Jamaica tonight in Cary, North Carolina. Fans can catch the game live on ESPN2 at 7pm eastern.

Jamaica did not fare as well against their CONCACAF competition as the U.S. did during world cup qualifying and as a result, they will not be joining the U.S. in Germany this summer. However, they must continue to re-group and build for the future on the backs of several young players the U.S. will be facing tonight. On the other hand, the U.S. has two very important goals in mind for tonight’s match: finalizing the world cup roster, and building team chemistry on the field. U.S. Head Coach Bruce Area has searched long and hard for the right combination of players with the talent, skill, and fitness to compete at the highest level in this most anticipated event.

Among the players that we will see tonight fighting for roster spots are fan favorite John O’Brien, Josh Wolff, and even Tony Meola, who will be earning his first cap since 2002. Though O’Brien and Wolff both have considerable qualifying and World Cup experience with the national team, neither has been able to consistently claim a place in the starting line-up. The injury bug has bitten the man they call “J.O.B.” all too often since his brilliant performance in midfield at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan. If healthy and fully fit, his creativity and skill with the ball at his feet will be quite an asset to the boys in red, white and blue. As for Wolff, this may be his last chance to show Area that he is capable of scoring goals at the national team level. Everyone knows that Wolf is athletic and tireless work horse up front, but he has lacked the deadly final touch he will need to compete with the world-class defenders he would butt heads with this summer in Germany.

Meola’s appearance tonight is a milestone and will likely be his final match in a U.S. jersey barring any unforeseen string of injuries to the top domestic goal-keepers. Most American soccer fans remember the 37-year-old ‘keeper as a key figure in the domestic soccer renaissance that began when the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994. Soon Meola will retire, but fans will always remember solid performances he gave us along with Tab Ramos, Marcello Balboa, John Harkes, and the man with the goatee: Alexi Lalas. Meola, along with the others mentioned above, certainly deserves his moment in the sun.

Only four games remain before this summer’s trip to Germany. Who will step-up their game and claim their place on the World Cup roster? Bruce Area just might get an answer to that question tonight.

Nuke 'Em For Jesus

2006-04-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

I try to tell myself that they can't really be seriously considering bombing Iran with nuclear weapons. The very thought is beyond crazy. The people running the show in Washington may be inept, they may be blissfully stupid, but they're not monsters. Right? I mean, they know that such a thing would not only be immoral, but would inspire new generations of terrorists for decades to come, right? Right?

The Bushies say they're trying to resolve things with Iran dipolmatically, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but of course that whole 'we don't really want war' stuff is the same hokum they kept mouthing about Iraq. Seymore Hersh says in The New Yorker that his sources tell him that Bush has a Messianic complex about his perceived 'duty' to do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do", i.e. take any steps necessary, including a nuclear strike, to prevent Iran from one day attaining nuclear weapons itself. Hersh says that one former defense official told him that military planning was premised on the notion that a "sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." God, where have I heard that before?

There are a number of theories as to what this administration is actually up to. It has been posited that this public discussion of a nuclear option against Iran is simply posturing, an attempt by Bush to get the Iranians (or perhaps our European allies, who have been dragging their feet to some extent on the issue of sanctions) thinking that he just might be crazy enough to do it, so we'd better give him whatever he wants. Others argue that this floating of the possibility of nuclear weapons is actually the set-up for a conventional strike, which will look tame and rational, perhaps even benevolent, by comparison. Either one of these theories might be true, but frankly such subtle, Machiavellian manipulation is not this crew's usual style, even if they are dumb enough to believe it might work.

I hate to say it--I really really do hate to say it--but in this case I think the correct answer is the most obvious one; I think the Executive branch of the U.S. Government wants to seriously consider the use of nuclear weapons against a foreign nation in order to prevent that nation from perhaps being a threat to us (or to Israel) ten years down the road. This wouldn't be Iraq-style premptive war, going in after weapons that you have convinced yourself already exist; this would be some kind of bizarro double-plus pre-emptive war, invading a foreign nation and using radiological weapons to deal with a threat that might exist in years to come. Even though a rational mind could never justify such an action, the more I see from this administration, the more I fear that they really are capable contemplating and even doing such a thing.

You want to know what thought keeps me up at night more than any other? In the darkest corners of my mind, my greatest fear is that the men now running this country are not, as some of my friends believe, just a bunch of charlatans using public piety and religious wedge issues to protect corporate interests and shift the tax burden away from the rich. No, my fear is that they actually believe all the apocalyptic insanity that is accepted as self-evident truth out among certain segments of their Evangelical base. You know, that whole "Armageddon brings us that much closer to Jesus' return" thing. The fact is, a lot of the fundamentalists who have risen to power in this nation (somehow still clinging to the notion that they are persecuted) actually see the End Of The World not as a bad thing to be avoided, but as a good thing, to some extent the only good thing, which is to be brought about ASAP. And that means war. There are a lot of Evangelicals out there in this country who see continuing and increased bloodshed in the Middle East as necessary to bringing about the Second Coming, something they very much want to see happen. They form the hardest of the hard-core of the President's base, which could mean that we are all along for the apocalyptic ride whether we believe their fantasies or not. If a few Persians get nuked on the road to the Kingdom of Heaven, it's just God working in mysterious ways.

Am I spouting paranoid ravings? Maybe. Hopefully. But the evil things that have been done to human beings down though the ages because someone or some group thought they were doing God's work is too long to list here. I hope all this talk about the potential use of nuclear weapons is all just "wild speculation", as the President says. If it's not, we're in worse trouble than I thought.

Sweep

2006-04-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

The season may be barely a week old, but a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals is worth celebrating no matter what the time of year. Last night Cubs' Catcher Michael Barrett hit a grand slam off Cards' closer Jason Isringhausen in the 8th to put the Cubs ahead on the way to an eventual 8-4 win, despite that fact that a tornado tossed a tree into his parent's living room in suburban Atlanta on Friday (no one was hurt). I've watched the replay of that grand slam on the Cubs' website about five or six times now. Thank God for the Internets.

It's great to have baseball back again, and better yet baseball in Springtime, when hope still lives. Soon we will enter the dog days of Summer, and in all likelihood the Cubs' questionable offense and oft-injured pitching staff will not be able to keep pace as we lurch toward the harsh reality of Autumn. But for now it is April, the Cardinals are leaving Wrigley with three straight losses, and all is right with the world.

Life Lessons

2006-04-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

Let me share a little bit of wisdom that I gained last night. If you're cooking with jalapeno peppers, take your contact lenses out first. If you try to take your contacts out of your eyes after slicing and dicing jalapenos, you will discover that there's a reason pepper spray is made from peppers.